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Barbarian and Greek—and Church History1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

F. W. Buckler
Affiliation:
The Graduate School of Theology Oberlin, Ohio

Extract

The subject I have chosen for my Address tonight is the present plight of Church History, its causes, and a possible cure. It is an old story. Thirty years ago, the late Professor H. M. Gwatkin wrote:

Church History has not always had a bad name in England. It was as respectable as any other till it was covered with reproach by the partizanship and credulity of the Tractarians. Whatever service they did by calling attention to the subject was far outweighed by the scandal of their uncritical methods and unhistorical dogmas. The reproach is not yet done away, for the literature with which the successors of that school have flooded the country is little better than a dream. Its writers often have their merit; but their fundamental dogmas compel them to set aside the plainest facts of history and human nature. So the outsiders who take their ideas of the subject from its professed experts are still too much inclined to set it aside with sarcastic politeness, or by way of reaction to rush into excesses of scepticism.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1942

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Footnotes

1

The Presidential Address delivered at the Meeting of the Society in Chicago on Monday the 29th of December 1941.

I should state that I refrained from reading Professor K. S. Latourette's paper, “New Perspectives in Church History,” Journal of Religion, XXI (1941), 432–443, until I had completed my own text. I desire to thank my friend Professor G. G. Norwood for his kindness in reading the manuscript.

References

2 Gwatkin, H. M., Early Church History, (2nd edn., London, 1912), I. 6.Google Scholar

3 The allusion is to an incident of some years ago, when a member of the Society was asked by a president of a theological seminary and a professor of theology to ascertain the opinions of teachers of Church History as to the feasibility and desirability of teaching Church History backwards!

4 Cf. Mk. IX, 34, 38 for the ‘allusion’ to apostolic succession! v. my review of Bishop Hensley Henson's The Church of England, Church History, IX (1940), 227f.,Google Scholar for the handicaps of the laity in ecclesiastical affairs; cf. Cochrane, C. N., Christianity and Classical Culture (Oxford, 1940), 219:Google Scholar “For the forms of their organization the Christian communities had made heavy drafts upon contemporary secular society. In the civitas, for instance, they had discovered a model for the ecclesia, its ordo (clergy) and plebs (laity) corresponding respectively to the curia and populus of the municipality.”

5 In contrast with the Nortmanni, the Dani not only plundered but destroyed every vestige of Christianity they could find.

6 Thus fulfilling the prophecy of Mk. xiii, 22. It may be permissible here to record an obiter dictum of the late Dr. A. E. Brooke of King's College, Cambridge. He said to me “If I found myself called upon to explain the rise of Formgeschichte I should suggest that it arose from the fact that Karl Barth needed to get rid of a good many passages in the Gospels which ran counter to his theology. An Englishman would have discarded them summarily as interpolations or on any other excuse, but a German needed a system by means of which to dispose of them, hence Formgeschichte.”

7 Cochrane, C. H., op. cit., 416419, 476–480.Google Scholar In this work we have, at last, a final analysis of the task and achievement of the Greatest of the Latin Fathers in face of conscious breakdown of classical culture under the strain imposed by its own limitations. His object is not quite the same as Pierre de Labriolle's, who performed pioneer work in the same field (La Réaction Paienne, Paris, 1934),Google Scholar it achieves, however, a finality which Labriolle lacks owing to his stress on apologetic rather than the cogency of St. Augustine's arguments.

8 Morgan, C. A., What Nietzsche Means (Cambridge, Mass., 1941), 32.Google Scholar

9 In this attack on the cult of objectivity, I am glad to find myself not alone. Dr. John Wilson, Director of the Oriental Institute of Chicago University, took a similar line at a symposium held in connection with the University's Jubilee celebrations. The proper sphere of objectivity is the description of an object, e. g., a fragment or sherd or a scientific experiment. The refusal to go further is at least a dereliction of the scholar's duty. For an excellent illustration of the misuse of the term, properly condemned v. my colleague Professor Fenn's, P. T. review of The Supreme Court and the New Deal (Harvard Law Review, LV. (1941), 307–10).Google Scholar

10 Gwatkin, H. M., op. cit., I. ix–x.Google Scholar This part of the paragraph is little more than a condensation of views expressed to me by Professor Gwatkin some thirty years ago. To him the practices of the cult of impartiality were ‘the abomination of desolation.’

11 Buckler, F. W., “Regnum et Ecclesia,” Church History, III (1934), 1619;CrossRefGoogle Scholar cf. Burrows, E., “Some Cosmological Patterns in Babylonian Religion,” ap. The Labyrinth, ed. Hooke, S. H. (London, 1935), 4370,Google Scholar for a fuller development of the political and ecclesiastical significance of ‘the strife of the Gods’ in this region. On the place of the Crucifixion v. Buckler, F. W., The Epiphany of the Cross (Cambridge, 1938), 1223;Google Scholar id., “The Meaning of the Cross,” Ang. Theol. Review, XII, (1930), 411422;Google Scholar id., “Eli, Eli Lama Sabachthani?”, A. J. S. L., LV (1938), 378391.Google Scholar

12 Buckler, F. W., “The Oriental Despot,” Ang. Theol. Rev., X (1928), 238249,Google Scholar reprinted in The Epiphany of the Cross (cit. supra) 97111.Google Scholar

13 Buckler, F. W., “The Political Theory of the Indian Mutiny,” Trans. R. Hist. S. 4th series, V (1923), 71100;Google Scholar id. “The Far East 1848–1858,” The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, II, 403429;Google Scholar “A New Interpretation of Akbar's ‘Infallibility’ Decree of 1579,” J. B. A. S., (1924), 591609.Google Scholar

14 Acts ii. 9–12; v. supra n. 11.Google Scholar

15 Plautus, Pseudolus, I. 5, 32.Google Scholar

16 “…it seemed to the writer that the picture of the World during the Roman period, commonly put before students in ‘Histories of Rome’ was defective, not to say false, in its omission to recognize the real position of Parthia during the three most interesting centuries of that period, as a counterpoise to the power of Rome, a second figure in the picture not inferior to the first, a rival state dividing with Rome the attention of mankind and the sovereignty of the known earth. Writers of Roman History have been too much in the habit of representing the later Republic and early Empire as, practically, a Universal Monarchy, a Power unchecked, unbalanced, having no other limits than those of the civilized world, engrossing consequently the whole attention of all thinking men, and free to act exactly as it pleased without regard to opinion beyond its own borders. One of the most popular (Gibbon) enlarges on the idea—an idea quite inconsistent with the fact—that for the man who provoked the hostility of the ruler of Rome there was no refuge upon the whole face of the earth but some wild and barbarous region, where refinement was unknown, and life would not have been worth living. To the present writer the truth seems to be that Rome never was in the position supposed—that from first to last, from the time of Pompey's Eastern Conquests to the Fall of the Empire, there was always in the world a Second Power, civilized or semi-civilized, which in a true sense balanced Rome, acted as a counterpoise and a check, had to be consulted or considered, held a place in all men's thoughts, and finally furnished a not intolerable refuge to such as had provoked Rome's master beyond forgiveness. This Power for nearly three centuries (B. C. 64—A. D. 225) was Parthia, after which it was Persia under the Sassanian Kings” Rawlinson, G., The Sixth Monarchy, (Oxford, 1872), Praef.Google Scholar

17 Lietzmann, H., Geschichte der Alten Kirche I (Die Anfange), (Berlin, 1932), c. 1.Google Scholar

18 Buckler, F. W., “The Establishment of the Church of England,” Church History X (1941), 305–6, particularly n. 15.Google Scholar

19 Ibid. 330f.

20 For a discussion of Newman's Calvinistic upbringing and the consequences of his anxiety concerning his ‘election,’ v. Brilioth, Y., The Anglican Revival (London, 1933), 32–6.Google Scholar

21 Buckler, F. W., The Epiphany of the Cross, 410, 72–74, 99.Google Scholar

22 J. A. O. S. Suppl. No. 1 (09, 1935), 121.Google Scholar

23 Cf. Mt. i. 12, Lk. iii. 27; the appointment of Zerubbabel in the reign of Darius as governor of Jerusalem implies investiture by Darius.

24 V. n. 12.

25 V. n. 11. To these perhaps should be added my paper “The Establishment of the Church of England,” (v. n. 18) in which I indicate the implications of Teutonic Barbarian Kingship; and The Epiphany of the Cross which is a sketch of the nature of the development of Church History and its theological implications.

26 In Church History, the pre-eminence given to the doctrine of Apostolic Succession needs only to be noticed; in Islam, the effect of the pre-eminence of succssion over delegation is amply illustrated by SirArnold, Thomas in The Caliphate (London, 1924),Google Scholar particularly chapter III, where it sometimes plays havoe with the translation from the Qu'ran, cf. Regnum et Ecclesia, 39 n. 78.Google Scholar

27 Cf. Is. s. 1–4, particularly “and where will ye leave your glory” (v. 4).

28 Streeter pointed out the difficulty caused by the Coming of the Magi in the acceptance of the Gospel according to Matthew, (The Four Gospels, 525)Google Scholar and to the Ps. Eusebius Syriae tract De Stella, placed by Wright, W. at the end of the fourth century, (J. S. L. X (1867 p. 155).Google Scholar The argument of the tract was known to Chrysostom (M. P. G. LVI. e. 636 f.), whether directly or not it is impossible to decide, so that it appeared probably before 388 A. D., and may date from the persecution of Shahpur II (309–379 A. D.). This is suggested by the argument that Moses, not Zoroaster, is the true revealer of the Glory. On the significance of the source M v. Regnum et Ecclesia, p. 32; The Epiphany of the Cross, 26–28.

29 For the argument v. “Firdausi's Shāhnāmah and the Genealogia Regni Dei,” 10–11.

30 The Kārnāmak-i-Artakhshīr-i-Pāpakān was edited and translated into English by Sanjana, Darab Dastur Peshotan (Bombay, 1896);Google Scholar it had already been translated into German by Noeldeke, T. (Goettingen, 1879).Google Scholar According to the colophon of the manuscript used by Sanjana, its date is 272 A. D.—a date not impossible from the treatment of the third Sasanid King. Sanjana and Noeldeke place it in the reign of Chosroes Nushirwan (531–579). Historia Alexandria Magni has been Edited by Kroll, W. (Berlin, 1926);Google Scholar the Syriae version by SirBudge, E. A. Wallis (Cambridge, 1889)Google Scholar with a translation into English and a complete comparison of versions.

31 Juvenal, , Sat., X, 168ff. (Ed. Mayor, J. E. B.).Google Scholar

32 Eusebius, , H. E., I. 14 (Hegesippus).Google Scholar

33 V. supra n. 28.

34 Burkitt, F. C., The Religion of the Manichees (Cambridge, 1925), 1820.Google Scholar

35 The Epiphany of the Cross, 3036.Google Scholar

36 Septimius Severus returned from Persia in 200 A. D.; the return of Ardashir to Persia, 224 A. D.; the death of Alexander Severus, 235 A. D.; Dio Cassius' History of Rome is rather a Roman Shahnamah for the house of Severus than an History of Rome; Origen's life covers the period and covers the transition, likewise Plotinus and Porphyry; the correspondence of the Dionysii of Alexandria and Rome marks the turning point of the Trinitarian controversy and the decline of Adoptionism in the West.

37 Cf. Simeox, C. E., “The Rôle of Cyrus in Deutero-Isaiah,J. A. O. S. LVII (1937), 158171.Google Scholar

38 The importance of the Saiyids in Persian History arises not so much from their descent from the Prophet Muhammad but rather from their maintenance of the royal stock of the Sasanids and so of the Kayan (Achaemenid) House and the blood of Cyrus and Darius, (Browne, E. G., A Literary History of Persia, I, 130134 et passim).Google Scholar One of the titles ascribed to Akbar's mother is Miryam Makani (“she who dwells with Mary,” “is of the household of Mary” or “who is the equal of Mary) (H. Beveridge). The Akbar Namah of Abu'l-Faz1 is well worth examination (Tr. Beveridge, H., Bibliotheca Indica, Calcutta, 1907) particularly I. 1668, II, 1–18,Google Scholar where the wealth of metaphor is worthy of greater attention than it usually receives.

39 F. Nau has unearthed the tradition of the Persian origin of the family of Nestorius, whose grandparents left Atak in Bait Garmai for Samosata. They were pagans, and their eldest son Bar Ba‘al-shamin was a convert to Christianity and father of Nestorius. He fled to the Roman Empire in the latter years of Shapur II (309–397). (Nestorius, , Le Liure d'Heraclide de Damas. Tr. Nau, F., Paris, 1910, p. v).Google Scholar The name suggests a semitie doublet for a Zoroastrian name, as does the necessity of flight on conversion. Even if that cannot be substantiated, the fact that the parents of Nestorius were natives of Persia remains, and with it, their knowledge of the Great King and Persian legend. Cf. Regnum et Ecclesia, 36–38.

40 For the varied use of this term v. Baker, J. F. Bethune, Nestorius and his Teaching (Cambridge, 1908), 82100, 219f.;Google Scholar Loofs, F., Nestorius (Cambridge, 1914), 7494;Google Scholar Nestorius, , The Bazaar of Heracleides. Tr. and ed. Driver, G. R. and Hodgson, L. (Oxford, 1925), 402410.Google Scholar

41 Regnum et Ecclesia, 26, n. 29.

42 Enn. II ix, V. iii. 9.

43 Cf. S. Augustini De Civ. Dei, ed. Weldon, J. C., II. 676–7.Google Scholar

44 V. supra n. 39.

45 M. P. G. LXXXIX. 109; ή παοάδοσıς τ̃ης хαϑολıх̃ης έххλησίας ού στοıχεī ούδέ τοοίς 'Ελλήνων οıς.

46 I am indebted to the late Sir Richard W. Carlyle for calling my attention to Innocent III's use of successor Apostoli Dei.

47 Regnum et Ecclesia, 39, n. 81. For ‘Ali Tabari's exegesis of Is. ix. 6, and Jer. xlix. 35–38 v. Tabari, Ali, The Book of Religion and Empire, Tr. Mingana, A. (Manchester, 1922), 95f. 125127.Google Scholar

48 SirArnold, T. W., The Preaching of Islam (London, 1913), 7579, 96–100, 106–7, 125–6, 229–242, 420 n. 1.Google Scholar

49 This indifference in Persia to Greek conciliar activity is conspieuous to any reader of Asseman and Chabot. The question of the marriage of the clergy was a far more pressing problem.

50 Assemani, J. S., Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino Vaticana (Rome, 17191728), III, ii, 651–4, 656–9, 663–4;Google Scholar The History of Yaballah III, Tr. by Montgomery, J. A. (New York, 1927), 45ff., 74;Google Scholar Synodicon Orientale ed. Chabot, J., 516f.;Google Scholar Labourt, J., Le Christianisme dans l'Empire Perse (Paris, 1904), 192ff., 209ff.Google Scholar

51 SirLuke, Harry, The Making of Modern Turkey (London, 1936), 68106.Google Scholar

52 Smith, V. A., Akbar the Great Mogul (Oxford, 1919), 168170, 249–256.Google Scholar

53 V. supra n. 38.

54 I Kings ii. 12–25; I have discussed this and the following passages at length in “The Human Khil'at” (The Near East and India, 09, 1926).Google Scholar For further examples v. Frazer, J. G., Lectures on the Early History of Kingship, London, 1905);Google Scholar and Chadwick, H. M., The Heroic Age (Cambridge, 1912), 97ff.Google Scholar

55 Procopius, Bell. Goth., IV. 20.

56 Baeda, H. E. II. 5;Google Scholar cf. I. 17, Resp. v.

57 Annales Bertin, ed. Waite, G. (S. R. G.), 858 (p. 49).Google Scholar

58 Saxo Gramm., Gesta Danorum (ed. Holder, A., Strassburg, 1886), IV. 32a (pp. 102, 1. 37103, 1. 38).Google Scholar This story is one of the sources of Shakespeare's Hamlet, whose problem was not the sin of his mother so much as the loss of his patrimony.

59 Chadwick, H. M., The Cult of Othin (Cambridge, 1899), 328, 45ff.Google Scholar

60 John, xi. 50.Google Scholar

61 Tacitus, , Germania, xiii:Google Scholar “Illum defendere, tueri, sua quoque fortia facta gloriae ejus assignare praecipuum sacramentum est.”

62 e. g. Christensen, A., Le Premier Homme et le Premier Roi I (Upsala, 1918), 39ff., II (Upsala, 1934), 40 ff.Google Scholar; the notes to his Contes Persans (Copenhagen, 1918)Google Scholar contain valuable references to the spread of stories. For Sir Jehangir Coyajee's work on the Holy Grail, the Round Table and the cult of the Aryans, , v. his Studies in Shahnamah (Bombay, 1938).Google Scholar

63 Feudalism is essentially the political and military manifestation of this claim.

64 E. g., both Hinemar and Nicholas I ranged themselves against Lothair II.

65 The strength of the Merovingians is shown by the opposition of their fideles to the usurpation of Pippin v. my Harunu'l-Rashid and Charles the Great (Cambridge, Mass., 1931), 67.Google Scholar

66 Murray, Margaret A., The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (Oxford, 1921), 129, 152–4, 160ff.;Google Scholar The God of the Witches (London, n. d.) 2–6, 13–22, 61, 66, 74–76, 115, 119f., 128f. and Cap. VII.

67 The Witch-Cult, 28–31, 126ff.; The God of the Witches, cap. III, 115, 126, 133f.

68 Ibid. An early example is quoted from the life of St. Cuthbert (Baeda, H. E., 25)Google Scholar by Kittredge, G. L., Witchcraft in Old and New England (Cambridge, Mass. 1928), 31.Google Scholar The old religion maintained its continuity, but its apparent increase in the 14th. and 15th. centuries was the cause of alarm to the ecclesiastical authorities.

69 Seesholtz, A. G., Friends of God (New York, 1934), 326,Google Scholar—an excellent survey of the conditions producing mystical movements.

70 “The Establishment of the Church of Ehgland” 305–6. For a full discussion of this question v. Sehramm, P. E., A History of the English Coronation, Tr. Legg, L. G. Wickham, (Oxford, 1937), 115–40,Google Scholar and the review Times Lit. Suppl. (London, 1937), 317.Google Scholar

71 The Proverbs of Alfred, ed Skeat, W. W. (Oxford, 1907), ll. 15, 73143.Google Scholar

72 The attitude of Charles in refleted by Einhard's comment on the Coronation in 800: “Quod primo in tantum aversatus est ut adfirmaret se eo die, quamvis praecipua festivitas esset, ecclesiam non intraturum si pontificis consilium praescire potuisset.”

73 In 816, Vita Hlud., c. 26.Google Scholar

74 The modern treatment of the Forget Decretals dates form the work of Fournier, Paul, “Études sur les Fausses Décrétales,” (Rev. d'Hist. Ecel. VII, 1906), 3351, 301–316, 543–564, 761–784;Google Scholar VIII (1907), 1956;Google Scholar Davenport, E. H., The False Decretals (Oxford, 1916), ix–xii,Google Scholar gives a convenient bibliography, and the book is a useful, if not entirely convincing, criticism of Fournier's position. Robertson, A., Regnum Dei, 236239Google Scholar is suggestive. For the evils, from the point of view of the metropolitans, v the Emser Punktation (1786), ap.Google Scholar Mirbt, C., Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums, (4te. Auflage, Tübingen, 1924), 414f.Google Scholar

75 For a discussion of Hincmar's position, which is none too friendly, v. HefeleLeClercq, Histoire des Conciles, IV, 298 n. 1, in which the following remark occurs (p. 300): En politique, Hincmar appartient à la génération qui suit immédiatement Charlemagne. Au temps du grand empereur, l'unité de lapos;empire est un dogume, comme l'unité de l'église; les deux pouvoirs se confondent, et si l'un d'eux semble l'emporter, e'est plutôt le pouvoir temporel.…

76 Nicholas, I., Epist. LV (ed. Perels, E., M. G. H. 1912), 353 f.Google Scholar cf. lvii (355–362) and lviii (362–364).

77 Cit. supra, n. 75.

78 Brooke, Z. N., The English Church and the Papacy (Cambridge, 1931), 7783.Google Scholar

79 “The Establishment of the Church of England,” 308–312.

80 Ibid., 313–319.

81 Creighton, M., A History of the Papacy, V, 218.Google Scholar

82 For a thorough investigation of the royalist literature of Henry VIII' reign, v. Baumer, F. le V., The Early Tudor Theory of Kingship (Yale Univ, P., 1940).Google Scholar Hooker' Ecclesiastical Polity, Book VIII has been edited by Houk, R. A. (Columbia University Press, 1931).Google Scholar

83 V. supra, nn. 50–51.

84 Arnold, T. W., The Preachin of Islam, 72, 102 n. 1, 123, cap. VI.Google Scholar

85 (London, 1927). This work is a mine of information dealing with the history of the Eastern Churches and the Uniates down to 1925. Is is well decumented and furnished with adequate guidence in reading.

86 It may not be out of place to suggest here a method of restoration of the perspective of Church History in periods (e. g. the later Parthian age) where no ecclesiastical records are available, but where it is known that the Christian faith had spread. Certain elements of secular history are bound to affect the life of the Church. These should be recorded and notice taken of the probable effect. The best illustration of the overpowering effect of the quantity of records over their absence is to be seen in a comparison between the Western Patriarchate of Rome and the neglected Patriarchate of Babylon, whose jurisdiction, particularly between the years 499 and 641 A. D. and again in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries far exceeded that of Rome.

87 “The Political Theory of the Indian Mutiny,” 73f.

88 Nielsen, F., The History of the Papacy in the XIXth Century, Tr. Mason, A. J. (London, 1906), I, 109137.Google Scholar

89 Quoted by. Nielsen, F., op. cit., II, 33.Google Scholar

90 For Nietzsche's place in modern Church History v. Figgis, J. N., The Will to Freedom (New York, 1917),Google Scholar and Morgan, G. A., What Nietzsche Means (Cambridge, Mass., 1940), Particularly cap. XII.Google Scholar

91 “The Establishment of the Church of England,” 337–339.

92 Ibid., 341–6.

93 Morgan, G. A., op. cit., 39,Google Scholar cf. 44f. It may be convenient to notice the dates of the three critics of Pietism: Wagner, R. (19131883),Google Scholar Ritschl, A. (18221889),Google Scholar and Nietzsche, Fr. (18441900).Google Scholar

94 This is the subject of an interesting essay by Thomas Carlyle (Miscellaneous Essays, I. 126–171).

95 “The Twilight of the Gods”; Newman, v. E., Stories of the Great Operas (New York, 1928), I, 283f.;Google Scholar cf. Chadwick, H. M., The Cult of Othin, 4042.Google Scholar On the Khil'at or cast off garment, usually known as the robe of honour, President E. H. Wilkins has Discovered a remarkable description of its signigicance in Petrarch's Epistola Metrica, Book II. 1. lines 38–73. In an article entitled “The Coronation of Petrarch,” to appear in the forthcoming number of Speculum, he discusses the passage in its setting.

96 Dionysius ap. John Stobaeus, Ecl. I. 3, 19.

97 From the letter of The Right Honourable Churchill, Winston S. to Tsouderos, M., 27 10, 1941.Google Scholar