Christian Historiography Research Paper

1. The Problem Of Inside Perspective And Outside Perspective

A Christian understanding of history describes Christianity from an inside perspective; but in many cases such descriptions can, to some extent be regarded as outside perspectives. This is because, together with an outside perspective on Christianity, e.g., by non-Christians, there are also outside perspectives of Christian minorities on Christian majorities, and vice versa. Such perspectives have a special forming influence on the understanding of history: The Ecclesiastical History by Theodoret of Kyrrhos (c. 393–466 AD), one of the most definitive works of Christian historians of the second generation after Eusebius, regards historical developments as formed by the debates between orthodox church (‘orthodoxy’) and apostate heresy. The Ecclesiastical History by his contemporary Philostorgius (c. 368–425 AD) has the same perspective, however with the opposite judgment: the theological tradition of the Alexandrine presbyter Arius (c. 260–336 AD), which has influenced theological thought mainly in Great Britain up to the present, is regarded as true orthodoxy by Philostorgius but as apostate heresy by Theodoret. Besides these, there have always existed more or less critical descriptions from an outside perspective by non-Christians (e.g., by the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, c. 330–395 AD, in the heyday of Christian historiography in late antiquity) in which Christian historians were tackled implicitly or explicitly.

It was only in modern Europe that Christian historians have made determined attempts towards a reduction of inside-perspective elements in Christian historiography. This is, of course, mainly with respect to the narrow horizon of thought formed according to the self-awareness of the three Christian denominations that arose in Central Europe after the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (the Religious Peace of Augsburg 1555 and the Peace of Westphalia 1648). At the beginning of the modern era, reflecting denominational antagonism, the Lutheran, Reformed, and Roman Catholic interpretations of history entered into competition. The protagonist of the overcoming of this denominational approach to the history of Christianity was Gottfried Arnold (1666–1707; Professor of History in Giessen 1697– 1698). He tried to write a ‘unpartheiische,’ which is a non-denominational church history. In the twentieth century, following the institutionalization of the ecumenical movement, which has tried to overcome the denominational splittings of the sixteenth century, the call for a general ‘ecumenical church history’ (Ernst Benz) arose. In a widespread late twentieth-century attempt to conceptualize the alternatives, ‘church history’ as opposed to ‘history of Christianity’ has been used. ‘Church history’ describes a perspective orientated towards the Christian denominations, and ‘history of Christianity’ describes a trans-denominational perspective.

2. Christian Interpretation Of History—Historical And Theological Standards

A Christian interpretation of history experiences a tension between historiography (or history) on the one hand and Christian theology on the other. This tension has existed from the very beginning in so far as theology (which in this context means the theory of the Christian faith) naturally favors certain theoretical options when reconstructing a history, for example, its assumption of a god acting in history, which other interpretations of history may hold but are by no means bound to hold. Such specific theoretical options always have methodical consequences; this is what the religious philosopher Ernst Troeltsch (1865–1923) showed in his clear analysis and what has been called ‘historical or dogmatic method’ (Troeltsch 1922, pp. 729–753). But one must not overestimate the ‘theological’ elements of Christian interpretations of history before the modern era: from the fourth century they had as a matter of course been orientated towards the literal and methodical standards of the interpretation of history of their respective times. This theoretical background was broken only very partially by specific religious or theological concepts. The first author of an ecclesiastical history, Eusebius of Caesarea, already followed the forms and standards of the historiography of his time in his historical writing, as can be seen in the prologue (Eusebius, historia ecclesiastica I 1,3f). Consequently, his account leaves out central questions of a theological interpretation of history. Because pagan ancient historiography very rarely explicitly treated the difficult relation between divine acting in history through fate (θεοτειχη theoteiche or fatum) and human freedom, Eusebius, too, never picked out the exact relation between man’s freedom and God’s acting in history as a central theme.

The fundamental problem of the relation between an interpretation of history according to modern standards on the one hand and specific theological premises on the other hand intensified in modern Europe. In the course of the modern secularization of historical thought, under the premise of etsi Deus non daretur (God is not necessary), new determinants of history (such as fate, chance, reasons of state, and ethics) were established in place of the Christian approach to a history regarded as being under the law of God. In consequence, the problem of how—under these conditions—a theological view of history was possible, increased. Most Christian interpretations of history after the Enlightenment have, however, tried to take up the problem, often through a religious or theological interpretation of the philosophical framework of the historiographic theory. The Berlin theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) for example made the following point in his notes of the years 1796–1799: ‘Die Historie ist immer religios und die Religion muß ihrer Natur nach historisch sein’ (‘history is always religious and religion must be historical by nature,’ Schleiermacher 1984, p. 25). At the same time the possibility of a Christian interpretation of the world, which was lost during the period of Enlightenment, was meant to be restored by means of such a religious charging up of history.

3. The Mechanisms Of Selection Of Christian Interpretation Of History

All interpretation of history and, furthermore, all historical writing, is characterized by acts of selection from a huge amount of material. Within the framework of a Christian interpretation of history, first the basic choice of subject must be made: to date, it has been heavily disputed whether a Christian interpretation of history merely ought to deal with certain fields of general history such as Christianity, the history of certain denominations or ecclesiastical groups, or a particular history formed in a particular way by a transcendental power (‘Heilsgeschichte’, ‘salvation history’), or whether a Christian interpretation of history ought rather to come up with a distinctive Christian perspective on history as a whole called ‘world history’ since the end of the eighteenth century. The controversies over whether the chosen ideological perspective necessarily leads to a concentration on an ecclesiastical history, or on a history of Christianity, or alternatively on the wider framework of a universal history, has always been an issue in Christian historical writing.

The first Christian author of a historical monograph, Eusebius, chose to concentrate on an ecclesiastical history without any detailed consideration of the political history of his time. A universal history, now lost, was presented by the Greek presbyter Philippus of Side less than a hundred years later, before AD 439. The Christian interpretation of history that has had the strongest influence up to the modern era, and which was fundamental in the middle ages, was written by the North-African theologian Augustine (AD 354–430). It takes the perspective of a universal history: after the city of Rome had been captured by the Goths in AD 410, both pagan and Christian interpretations of history, which until then had their focus in the Empire, broke down because of the obvious collapse of the Roman Empire. As a consequence, the bishop was bound to develop his own distinctive concept of a universal history which would be able to convey a new sense of history. Augustine presented it with his work De Ci itate Dei, ‘The City of God’ (AD 413–426; for details see Sect. 4).

While the Middle Ages mainly expressed concepts of universal history based on Augustine’s, e.g., by Otto of Freising (c. 1112–1158), the traditional Christian universal—historical interpretation broke down during the Enlightenment. Theological categories, such as ‘God’s revelation’ or ‘God’s acting’, which had been systematic premises of the Christian interpretation of a universal history, and had consequently formed a unity of transcendental and earthly reality, became problematic. After the attempts of the nineteenth century to recreate such a concept of unity on a new basis, and thus to once more present a Christian interpretation of a universal history (in very different ways by Schleiermacher, Hegel, and Ranke), the twentieth century progressively withdrew from such theological interpretations of history. Christian interpretation and presentation of history in the twentieth century were more or less confined to the specific context of Christianity and church, even if the theoretical basis was sometimes broader. That was the systematic reason for the modern criticism of concepts which attempted to create a close correlation between the history of human development and God’s acts of salvation, by way of ‘salvation history’, the theological interpretation of certain incidents.

Along with the fundamental question of whether a Christian interpretation of history must be understood universally, or be restricted to a history of Christian institutions, there are other mechanisms of selection taken from general historiography which are of importance to a Christian interpretation of history. Historians of the ancient world and the middle ages used, as important mechanisms of selection, the questions of the meaning of an incident, of its benefit for future generations, or of its documentation in the respective privileged sources, and so forth. The bias thus created is obvious. However, in general, the critical sense with which historians before the modern era treated their own modes of selection is underestimated. Such reflections were usually made in the prologue of historiographical works.

The vehement calling into question of traditional mechanisms of selection in the general history of the twentieth century (see e.g., the criticism of any historical interest with a biased concept of histories of ideas or politics, the criticism of the concentration on Europe, and of the neglect of feminist research) reached the historiography of Christian denominations with a certain delay; its consequences on a general Christian historical awareness only gradually become apparent.

4. The Basic Models Of A Christian Interpretation Of History

Christian conceptions of history up to the modern era usually have reconstructed it on the basis of a small number of comparatively simple models. Eusebius describes the history of the church according to a model of a process of constant ‘advances,’ something which is in strict contrast to the historiography of his times with its stress on cyclic processes and the decadence of traditional Roman values. The history of his own religion teleologically leads to the Christian empire of Constantine. Augustine breaks with Eusebius’ model of a progress with his concept of two cities (civitates) wandering through the ages. He differentiates between the civitas Dei, the ‘citizenry of God’ as an earthly community of the heavenly citizens, and the civitas diaboli, ‘the citizenry of the devil.’ Of course, the Roman state and the community of those who do not live under God and towards him are not identical in the sense of the state as such being the civitas diaboli. But Augustine takes up the traditions of radical Christian criticism of the state, and with his anthropologically based historiographic model gives a clear analysis of the social deficiencies of his time. The European Reformation breaks with this conception. It mainly follows the models of decadence developed by the medieval church reformers, which can also be found with humanistic authors: the promising beginnings of the first Christians had decayed in a middle period which are only now brought to light again. This conception was monumental, and had a strong anti-Catholic impetus in the so-called ‘Magdeburger Zenturien’—a team effort by protestant theologians (Basel 1559–1574) led by the strict Lutheran Matthias Flacius Illyricus (1520–1575), which has been known under that name since the eighteenth century, and which has remained a fragment. Along with a comparatively simple modeling, the work is characterized by the use of an enormous number of sources. Cardinal Caesar Baronius (1538–1607) reacted to this challenge with his Annales Ecclesiastici. But this catholic reply, in terms of method only, mirrored the protestant work, and it tried to answer the reproach of having broken with the truth with a proof of uninterrupted continuity from the age of the early Christian church.

The model of decadence gained special influence (e.g., in Goethe’s work); Arnold applied as a basis— despite his programmatic orientation towards an impartial standpoint. Arnold explained the history of Christianity according to a model of progressive decadence, beginning after the pure earliest church. Despite his persistent interest in counterevidence to official protestant ecclesiastical historiography, he held to his conception of decadence, and to a structural principle of the denominational history of Christianity. Such simple basic models for the reconstruction of the history of Christianity were by no means, or first, only questioned by the European Enlightenment. Augustine’s criticism of Eusebius’ conception of progress in De Ci itate Dei is an example, because it was motivated by an empirical diagnosis of society and by critical work on biblical texts. Humanist historians of the Reformation must also be mentioned, particularly Philipp Melanchthor (1497–1560) and Johannes Sleidanus (1505–1556). In his short world history, and in a work on contemporary history entitled Denkwurdigkeiten, Betreffend Staat und Religion Unter Kaiser Karl V, strict models of decadence are missing. Sleidanus always endeavored to describe religious changes with regard to imperial power and state power; he can be regarded as one of the progenitors of a strong orientation towards political history.

Along with the orientation towards simple conceptions of progress or decadence, the history of Christian historiography, and the Christian awareness of history, has called into question over-simplified models up to the present. In Ranke’s formula, for example, each epoch is immediate to God; divisions into periods are good indicators for the respective underlying models. In this respect, denominational Christian interpretation of history tends to differ from the standards of general history; protestant conceptions for example speak of a ‘period of Reformation’ as a threshold between the middle ages and the modern era.

The four basic problems outlined above have characterized Christian concepts of history from its beginnings, and they show that the crucial changes in Christian interpretation of history, caused by the increasing influence of the methodical standards of modern historiography and finally by the victory of historicism, must not be overlooked in theology, either. The victory of historicism has had a significant consequence on academic theology as a whole, because the historization of all theological disciplines was demanded (among others by Troeltsch), and was partially carried out. It is equally clear and almost undisputed that the general ‘crisis of historicism’ also had an impact on theological form of Christian interpretation of history, something which had already been diagnosed by contemporary church historians like Karl Heussi (1877–1961). Mainly in continental Protestant theology, this general crisis was accompanied by a theological criticism of general historicism. This development is now called an ‘antihistorical revolution’ (Graf 1988, pp. 377–405), a term which points to its consequences: the removal of church history as a leading subject of academic theology.

In the twentieth century there was an interesting revitalization of apocalyptic thought on a large scale, the relation of which to the ‘crisis of historicism’ is not immediately clear. This form of Christian theology, which goes back to a movement in Hellenistic Judaism, and which had already left deep marks on certain biblical texts, is characterized by a distinctive awareness of history. The present time is interpreted as the ‘last age,’ and forms part of a certain fixed scheme of the course of history, whilst there is no historical interest in the identification of certain ‘signs of the times.’ In the ancient world, the formation of a Christian awareness of history was accompanied by a drastic loss of meaning of apocalyptic elements for Christianity. The eruptive revival of apocalyptic trends in the middle ages, the early modern era, and the present has in most cases been accompanied by a protest against Christian interpretations of history orientated towards the standards of the respective time.

5. Current Problems And Questions Of Christian Interpretation Of History

The systematization of current schools of Christian interpretation of history meets with the difficulty of the actual presence of pluralism (Nowak 1997, pp. 3–12), perceived a ‘new confusion.’ Such concepts are present in the institutional fields of denominational church history as well as independent of these. The Christian inside perspective, considered to embody prejudice in some accounts, presents a challenge to other approaches to the problems of Christian historicism; they have not, however, discarded it. This shows the limited significance of the presently popular alternatives of a ‘church history’ and a ‘history of Christianity.’ In both cases, attempts to take an outside perspective are, more or less admittedly, wrapped in an inside perspective.

Within the horizon of the standards of history at the beginning of the third millennium on the one hand, and of Christian theology on the other, almost all schools have tried to achieve careful de-theologization. This, however, is rarely picked out as a central theme. It is only very occasionally that a decidedly theological contribution to the general discussion on history is demanded (Herms 1997, pp. 305–30); a ‘resort to pragmatism’ can be noted (Nowak 1997, p. 12). Even if some historians still demand a concept of universal history in Christian terms as regards the selection of subject matter, most publications actually present contributions to a discipline of general history. That such presentations are an most cases characterized by the leading assumptions of universal history (and theology) is obvious to any sensitive examination; but it is only rarely admitted or made explicit. The presently vigorous call for an approach to church history, or history of Christianity, as historical– cultural studies also implies certain universal– historical structures in the shape of an ‘histoire totale’.

The critical calling into question of historiographical mechanisms of selection and of modeling, which mainly arose in the twentieth century, has increasingly been accepted by the institutionalized Christian interpretation of history. But it is very rare that it is understood as one of the consequences of fundamental decisions made in the course of the European Reformation movement which have created a high level of ideology-critical potential.

These four basic problems of Christian interpretations of history cannot be solved by means of isolated special theological hermeneutics. They call for an original contribution to the general discussion of history and of the interpretation of history. This is especially true in view of the latest developments in ‘writing history in the postmodern era’: can the concept of a literal sense as the regulatory concept of the process of interpretation really be given up in the course of the deconstruction of its own narrative? does not a Christian interpretation of history which does away with the ‘grand narratives’, and the ‘master processes’ dissolve itself? is the notion of ‘God’s acting’ dispensable in a Christian interpretation of history? Here, a new and interesting challenge is put to the long-neglected field of a theory of Christian interpretation of history. It is possible that a theoretically renewed, clear-cut, Christian interpretation of history helps to preserve in a positive sense two functions of the Christian interpretation of history under the conditions of the postmodern era: the function of forming society, and the function of critically analyzing society. But with all this, the traditional objections to a simplistically designed history of salvation remain important.

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