The “Sic et Non” of Stephanus Gobarus

1923 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 205-234
Author(s):  
Adolf von Harnack
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Church History ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come ◽  
History Of Doctrine ◽  
As If

In the older, as well as in the current, books on church history, and at some points in New Testament introduction, patristics, and the history of doctrine, a certain work is referred to under the name of “Stephanus Gobarus.” The problems arising out of the quotations from this book are of great interest; but we are given virtually no information about the author beyond his name, and the book itself remains a complete mystery. Only the industry of Walch, in Part VIII of his “Entwurf einer vollständigen Historie der Ketzereien” (1778, pp. 877 ff.) has analyzed it, or, rather, made unsatisfactory and incorrect extracts from it, to which he has added a few observations of his own. With this exception, it seems as if ever since the tenth century scholars had entered into a conspiracy to maintain complete silence about this work, or at least to content themselves with a few scanty remarks.In the following pages I shall endeavor to come closer to the work and its author. I do not undertake to give a commentary, for that would require a book; but shall confine myself to the main points, going into detail only with reference to passages that relate to the literature of the first three centuries.

The lost chant tradition of early Christian Jerusalem: some possible melodic survivals in the Byzantine and Latin chant repertories

1992 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 151-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Jeffery
Keyword(s):  
Tenth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
Central Problem ◽  
Close Relative ◽  
Gregorian Chant ◽  
Complex State ◽  
Annual Cycles ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
History Of ◽  
As If

The medieval chant traditions of the Eastern and Western churches can generally be traced back to about the tenth century, when the earliest surviving notated manuscripts were created. In these earliest sources, the various traditions are already distinct from each other and fully formed, each with thousands of chants that are assigned to at least eight modes and belong to dozens of melody types or families, carefully distributed across the daily, weekly and annual cycles of a complicated liturgical calendar. Yet we have hardly any information at all as to how these traditions evolved into the highly complex state in which we first find them. Where did they come from and when did they originate? How and when did they achieve the relatively fixed form in which we know them? Questions such as these have been important in chant research during the last thirty years, ever since Willi Apel outlined what he called ‘the “central” problem of the chant, that is, the question concerning its origin and development’. But attempts to investigate these questions have often been conceived too narrowly, overlooking as much evidence as they include or more. For instance, many scholars have written about ‘the central problem’ as if it belonged mainly to Gregorian chant and its close relative, the Old Roman or special Urban repertory, when in fact the origins and early history of almost every tradition of Eastern and Western chant are equally obscure.

Historical and Systematic Theology in the Mirror of Church History: The Lessons of “Ordination” in Sixteenth-Century Saxony

2002 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 743-773
Author(s):  
James M. Kittelson
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Church History ◽  
Systematic Theology ◽  
Catholic Reformation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Center Stage ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Doctrine ◽  
American Society ◽  
Incoming President

Leopold von Ranke is probably best known for his dictum that written history must mirror the past wie es eigentlich gewesen. Practicing historians nonetheless know that even the greatest masters of their craft inevitably bring their own histories with them to their work. As a case in point, two decades ago Robert M. Kingdon observed in his address as incoming President of the American Society of Church History that students of the Catholic Reformation tend to focus their attention on institutions and practices, while Protestants and Lutherans in particular give center stage to the history of doctrine. Both, faithful to their own traditions, therefore produce a church history manqué that would benefit from combining the methods, presuppositions, and findings of the two approaches.

Henry Boynton Smith and Church History in Nineteenth-Century America

2016 ◽  
Vol 85 (2) ◽  
pp. 302-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette G. Aubert
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church History ◽  
Church Of Christ ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Nineteenth Century America ◽  
German Education ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Doctrine ◽  
American Society ◽  
The Church

Henry Boynton Smith (1815–1877) was one of the few nineteenth-century American scholars committed to disseminating German methods of ecclesiastical historiography to a country known for its anti-historical tendencies. However, modern scholars have generally overlooked his significant contributions in this area. Hence exploring his scholarly reception and specifically his History of the Church of Christ, in Chronological Tables will fill a niche in the historiography of church history.Philip Schaff (1819–1893), the renowned church historian and founder of the American Society of Church History, was one of the few contemporaries of Smith who understood that Smith's scholarship was on a par with that being produced in Germany. Schaff specifically praised Smith's chronological tables—evidence of Smith's German education among some of the best German historians of the period, including Leopold von Ranke and August Neander. This essay reviews Smith's History of the Church of Christ, in Chronological Tables in the context of the newly emerging scientific history and describes his contribution to nineteenth-century American scholarship. Smith is worthy of attention for establishing a central position for the history of doctrine and for promoting the field of church history and the use of chronological tables in nineteenth-century America.

The New Testament and Slavery

2020 ◽  
pp. 12-37
Author(s):  
Mary E. Sommar
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Church History ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
Specialist Knowledge ◽  
Church Law ◽  
The Church ◽  
Historical Periods ◽  
Insight Into

This is the story of how the church sought to establish norms for slave ownership on the part of ecclesiastical institutions and personnel and for others’ behavior toward such slaves. Chronicles, letters, and other documents from each of the various historical periods, along with an analysis of the various policies and statutes, provide insight into the situations of these unfree ecclesiastical dependents. Although this book is a serious scholarly monograph about the history of church law, it has been written in such a way that no specialist knowledge is required of the reader, whether a scholar in another field or a general reader interested in church history or the history of slavery. Historical background is provided, and there is a short Latin lexicon. This chapter provides an overview of ancient Roman and Hebrew slavery and discusses slavery as it is mentioned in the New Testament.

We Have Tasted the Powers of the Age to Come: Thinking the Force of the Event—from Dynamis to Puissance

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Clément Mercier
Keyword(s):  
History Of ◽  
To Come ◽  
Interpretative Model

Responding to the provocative phrase ‘The Age of Grammatology’, I propose to question the notion of ‘age’, and to interrogate the powers or forces, the dynameis or dynasties attached to the interpretative model of historical periodisation. How may we think the undeniable actuality of the event beyond the sempiternal history of ages, and beyond the traditional, onto-teleological chain of power, possibility, force or dynamis that undergirds such history?

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Winter
Keyword(s):  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Rich Diversity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Oppression ◽  
The Rich ◽  
To Come

This concluding chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. The book has shown that the multiplicity of lived ʻAlawi experiences cannot be reduced to the sole question of religion or framed within a monolithic narrative of persecution; that the very attempt to outline a single coherent history of “the ʻAlawis” may indeed be misguided. The sources on which this study has drawn are considerably more accessible, and the social and administrative realities they reflect consistently more mundane and disjointed, than the discourse of the ʻAlawis' supposed exceptionalism would lead one to believe. Therefore, the challenge for historians of ʻAlawi society in Syria and elsewhere is not to use the specific events and structures these sources detail to merely add to the already existing metanarratives of religious oppression, Ottoman misrule, and national resistance but rather to come to a newer and more intricate understanding of that community, and its place in wider Middle Eastern society, by investigating the lives of individual ʻAlawi (and other) actors within the rich diversity of local contexts these sources reveal.

The Date of the Muratorian Fragment

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-172
Author(s):  
John F. Lingelbach
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Church History ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Current Work ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Historical Theology ◽  
First Time ◽  
Objective Methodology

Three hundred years after its discovery, scholars find themselves unable to determine the more likely of the two hypotheses regarding the date of the Muratorian Fragment, which consists of a catalog of New Testament texts. Is the Fragment a late second- to early third-century composition or a fourth-century composition? This present work seeks to break the impasse. The study found that, by making an inference to the best explanation, a second-century date for the Fragment is preferred. This methodology consists of weighing the two hypotheses against five criteria: plausibility, explanatory scope, explanatory power, credibility, and simplicity. What makes this current work unique in its contribution to church history and historical theology is that it marks the first time the rigorous application of an objective methodology, known as “inference to the best explanation” (or IBE), has been formally applied to the problem of the Fragment’s date.

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