646 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 



for it is only under that condition that it may claim its place in the 

 cycle of sciences. Even the very programme of this Congress of Arts 

 and Science in St. Louis is the confirmation of my statement. 



To improve really our studies, we ought to push them forward in 

 the direction so indicated. There are, at the present time, most im- 

 portant problems to be solved. On the one side we cannot understand 

 the psychology of early Christianity nor its theological and ecclesi- 

 astical formation without becoming better aware of the precedent 

 religious state of the people who became Christian, and growing 

 familiar with the pagan world where Christianity took its historical 

 shape. On the other hand, we cannot appreciate the religious value 

 of the ancient Christian data without being able to compare them 

 with other religious data of the same kind in other religions. For 

 instance, if we want to understand the origin of Christian monas- 

 ticism, it is necessary not only to know the spiritual tendencies 

 which in the Christian Church itself drove out of the civil life such 

 a lot of believers, but no less the parallel tendencies which were at 

 work in the pagan society of the same time. And if we want to 

 appreciate this great historical event, we ought to be able to compare 

 Christian asceticism and monasticism with the similar movements in 

 other religions, as, for instance, in Buddhism. 



We ought not to be taken up wholly by little monographies. 

 'They are indeed absolutely necessary. But they are fruitless, if 

 they remain without connection with a more general historical study. 

 There are certainly still many special points to elucidate in the 

 proper field of ecclesiastical history, especially in the period follow- 

 ing the Nicean Council; but those points are generally of secondary 

 importance. Let them be studied in a great number of careful mono- 

 graphies. That is excellent; that is necessary! But this dust of 

 scholarship cannot by itself improve our scientific knowledge, if it be 

 not worked up by men of a larger and more comprehensive mind, able 

 to use all those little and painfully elaborated pieces of stone to 

 make up the mosaic in which the evolution of living history is re- 

 presented. Alas! that is what we most want. How few are the 

 scholars able to join an immense learning in all details with -har- 

 monious and powerful general views, like the master at whose side 

 I have the honor of speaking to-day ! 



Scientific research does not consist only in resuming ever and ever 

 the same subjects. Beware of generalizing early and prematurely! 



Warren, Goodspeed, Toy, Morris Jastrow, Jr., G. F. Moore, Nathaniel Schmidt, 

 and many others; collection of Handbooks on the History of Religions}. Two special 

 reviews are devoted to these studies: the Revue de VHistoire des Religions, edited, 

 by Jean ReVille in France, and the Archiv fur Religionsvrissenschaft, edited in 

 Germany by Achelis, and, since 1904, also by Dieterich. Concerning this recent 

 development of the general history of religion, see the article in the Revue de 

 I'Histoire des Religions, t. XLIII, p. 58, sqq. 



