626 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 



fraternity embracing the whole human race have we not there one 

 of the inalienable ideals of Christendom, yet also an ideal which gave 

 room for the mistaken notion, nourished as it was by Old Testament 

 ideas, that this union could be attained in the quickest and safest 

 way by a universal political church-system? The notion is far from 

 being exploded, but it will be driven from the field just in proportion 

 as the ideal of a Christian fraternity on the basis of freedom becomes 

 a power. 



On the basis of freedom and on the basis of nationalities; for 

 another lesson which political history, when examined in connection 

 with ecclesiastical history, teaches us is that in the latter nationalities 

 play an enormous part, and that any attempt to get rid of them is in 

 vain. Every great nationality has made itself at home in the church 

 in its own way. We can distinguish a Greek, a Latin, a German, an 

 English, an American church-system, etc., etc., and the distinctions 

 that obtain here are more important than all others. They are appar- 

 ent, above all, in the mode of worship and in the way in which Christ- 

 ianity is practiced; but even the development of doctrine has always 

 been subject to strong national influences. No one who overlooks 

 these distinctions, or explains them wrongly, can help falling into the 

 grossest mistakes and making history obscure. The Christian fra- 

 ternity at which we aim will come, not as a union of denationalized 

 individuals, but as a union of friendly peoples, each one of which will 

 have developed the best qualities of its race and nationality. This 

 cannot take place unless each nation knows its own and others' 

 national peculiarities. Nor can the ecclesiastical historian dispense 

 with this knowledge if he wishes to understand the past and prepare 

 for the future of the church. 



II 



National history leads us direct to the history of religion in general; 

 for the religions of the peoples to which the church came are very 

 closely bound up with their national peculiarities. If, then, we are to 

 study the history of the Christian religion, a thorough knowledge of 

 the religions of the Greek, the Roman, the Germanic peoples, etc., is 

 necessary. What resistance did these religions offer, what kind of 

 resistance was it, in what respect was it strongest and in what weak- 

 est, and by what means did the church overcome it? these are the 

 questions which at once arise and demand an answer if we are to 

 understand the history of the church. 



But there is something more. We should be very short-sighted if 

 we conceived the relation between the Christian religion and other 

 religions solely as a contradiction. That they, too, have had an 

 influence on the development of the Christian religion has long been 



