§5. History of
Doctrine. For ancient sources see articles Heresiology and Person of Christ
in D.C.B., vols. iii., iv. The modern classics are the works of Petavius, de Trinitate (in vols. ii. and iii.
of his De dogmat. Theol.) of Thomassinus, Dogmata Theologica, and of Bull, Defensio fidei Nicænæ
(maintaining against Petav. the fixity of pre-Nicene doctrine). Under
this head we include Newman’s Arians
of the Fourth Century, an English classic, unrivalled as a dogmatic
and religious study of Arianism, although unsatisfactory on its purely
historical side. (Obsolete chronology retained in all editions.) The
general histories of Doctrine are of course full on the subject of
Arianism; for an enumeration of them, see Harnack, §2 of his
Prolegomena. In English we have Shedd (N.Y.,
1863, Edinb., 1884), Hagenbach (Clark’s
Foreign Theol. Lib.), and the great work of Dorner (id.). The most important recent works are those of
Harnack, Dogmengeschichte (1886, third
vol., 1890), a most able work and (allowing for the prepossessions of
the Ritschl school) impartial and philosophical; and Loofs, Leitfaden zur Dogmengeschichte (2 ed.,
1890), on similar lines, but studiously temperate and fair. Both works
are much used in this volume (quoted commonly as ‘Harnack,’
‘Loofs,’ simply. Harnack, vol. i., is quoted from the
first edition, but the later editions give comparative tables of
the pages). For Councils and Creeds, in addition to the works of
Hefele and Bright mentioned §4 c., see Heurtley Harmonia Symbolica; Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole; Hort, Two Dissertations (1876), indispensable for
history of the Nicene Creed; Swainson,
Nicene and Apostles’ Creed, 1875; Caspari, Ungedruckte u.s.w. Quellen zum Taufsymbol
u.s.w. (3 vols. in 2, Christiania, 1866–1875), and Alte
und Neue Quellen, ib. 1879; one of the most important of modern
patristic works.
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