SECTION E 

 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 



(Hall 2, September 24, 10 a. TO.) 



CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR ERI BAKER HULBERT, University of Chicago. 

 SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR ADOLF HARNACK, University of Berlin. 

 PROFESSOR JEAN REVILLE, University of Paris. 



THE RELATION BETWEEN ECCLESIASTICAL AND 

 GENERAL HISTORY 



BY KARL GUSTAV ADOLF HARNACK 



(Translated from the German by Prof. T. Bailey Saunders, by courtesy of The 



Contemporary Review) 



[Karl Gustav Adolf Harnack, Professor of Sacred History, University of Berlin, 

 Germany, b. May 7, 1851, Dorpat, Russia. Privat-docent, Leipzig, 1874-76; 

 Special Professor, Leipzig, 1876-79; Regular Professor, Giessen, 1879-86; 

 ibid. Berlin, 1886 . Member Royal Academy of Sciences of Prussia, Scientific 

 Committee of Royal Prussian Historical Institute of Rome, and various other 

 societies. Author of History of Old Christian Literature; Text-book of the History 

 of Dogmas; The Essential Characteristics of Christianity; together with many 

 other noted works and papers on sacred history.] 



How is ecclesiastical history related to general history? This is 

 a question which is either not treated at all in text-books on ecclesi- 

 astical history or treated very briefly. The omission is easy to under- 

 stand, for it proceeds from a view taken in earlier times and not yet 

 exploded. The ancient and the medieval church regarded the his- 

 tory of the church as something that differed from the history of 

 the world. The Catholic churches of our own day still regard it in 

 the same light. They are convinced that the church is under God's 

 special guidance, possesses an infallible doctrine, is governed by men 

 appointed by the Deity Himself, and has received a promise that it 

 shall remain unchanged until the end of all things. The church and 

 its affairs are thus sharply separated from the rest of history; and 

 while the rest of history, of course, exercises an effect on the church, 

 the effect is only on the circumference and does not reach the centre. 



This way of looking at the matter found its classical expression 

 in the earliest account which we possess of ecclesiastical history, 

 namely, that given by Eusebius. According to him the history of 

 the church is only the further operation and fuller development of 

 the fact that in Jesus Christ the divine Logos came down from 

 heaven, and since that time the history of the church has a place 



