at yale university on october 2, 2013

HISTORY W I T H O U T I N T E R P R E T A T I O N ?

Review Article of the Handbuch der Dogmen- und Theologie-geschichte (ed. Carl Andresen)

T H E publication of the Handbuch der Dogmen- und Theologie-geschichte1 under the chief editorship of Carl Andresen, whichappeared shortly before his death, adds one more fine work to the longline of distinguished German contributions to the comprehensivepresentation of the history of Christian theology, which extends in themodern period from Harnack's classic presentation through theProtestant contributions of Friedrich Loofs, Reinhold Seeberg, andEmmanuel Hirsch to the present Handbuch ,2 and, in Roman CatholicScholarship from the textbooks of M. J. Scheeben and M. Schmaus tothe magnificent synthesis of historical and systematic material inMysterium Salutis, composed during the theological renewal associ-ated with Vatican II. Standing apart from the overt theologicalmotivation associated with both traditions, the Handbuch is anattempt to present the history of dogma and theology free fromprejudice, inasmuch as the primary objective is to represent thecontent of Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox thought withoutexplicit or implicit downgrading of any one strand. In this theHandbuch is largely, but not wholly successful; it does not, however,lack presuppositions and inevitably, as will become apparent,comparison with Harnack's work3 is forced upon the reader. This is inits formal structure a self-consciously Protestant work which never-theless strives to present the content of tradition as freely and fully aspossible.

The Handbuch is a monumental achievement clearly destined toremain an indispensable source for the study of the history ofChristian theology for the foreseeable future. In technical terms thethree volumes exemplify and sustain many aspects of the highesttraditions of German scholarship and the project is pursued on a scale

1 Handbuch der Dogmen- und Theologiegeschichte, edited by Carl Andresen, vol. I,Die Lehrentwicklung im Rahmen der Katholizitat, pp xvi + 754; vol II, DieLehrentwicklung tm Rahmen der Konfessionahtat, pp. xxvn + 664; vol III, DieLehrentwicklung im Rahmen der Okumemzitat, pp IX + 673 (Gftttingen:, Van-denhoeck und Ruprecht, 1980-4).

2 For a recent survey of relevant literature, see W. Wicker, E. H. Ratschow, 'DogmaI und IT in TRE, ut (Berlin, 1982), 26-34 a nd 34-41-

3 The prefaces to A. von Harnack's Lehrbuch still repay careful study, as theyprovide illuminating insight into the scanty theoretical considerations in theHandbuch

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HISTORY WITHOUT INTERPRETATION5 461

that cannot fail to impress the reader whose energies match thedemands of an often densely written text. The editorial intentions andorganizational principles of the project are presented in the forewordto the second volume, devoted to the Reformation, which was the firstto appear in 1980 on the occasion of the 450th anniversary of theAugsburg Confession. This foreword, together with a later recapi-tulation at the outset of volume I (1982), indicates that theHandbuchlies squarely in a tradition of Protestant historical writing whichaccords to the Reformation undisputed pivotal status. The Reforma-tion is, to use Andresen's image, the mighty pillar of a bridge standingin the midstream of the tradition separating the era of the undividedChurch from that of ecumenism and post-Enlightenment modernity.Inasmuch as there is a theoretical and formal structure implicit in theHandbuch it consists in this triad: the thesis of the growth andformalization of dogma is confronted by its antithesis in there-Paulimzation of tradition located in the doctrine of justification, inthe face of which the former disintegrates; this culminates in therepeated synthetic efforts within the context of modernity to reconciledifference and supersede fragmentation in the ecumenical impulse.Beyond this broad schematism represented above all in the titles of thethree volumes there is neither a comprehensive theory unifying andinterpreting the development of dogma (such as may be found indifferent degrees in the work of Overbeck, Harnack, or Werner, forexample), nor any attempt to correlate on a grand scale the history ofdogma with historical and contextual factors through sociologicaltheory as classically executed by Troeltsch; with the history ofEuropean ideas as by Emmanuel Hirsch; or with the history ofphilosophy and science in Die Legitimdt der Neuzeit by HansBlumenberg.4 The Handbuch will doubtless provide a mine ofinformation for those who would seek to justify or attack suchtheoretical schemata but in the first instance it is a well-groundedexposition of the history of the tradition as a whole based on primarytexts.

The structure of the Handbuch does, therefore, impose constraintsother than the chronological upon the authors of the subdivisions whomanage to convey both the thematic diversity and the continuity ofidentity of the tradition traceable through epochs of development,change, decay, and renewal. The main strength of the scheme is itscapacity to retain Latin, Orthodox, and Protestant strands within an

4 H. Blumenberg, Die Legitimdt der Neuzeit (Suhrkamp Frankfurt, 1966)translated by R. M. Wallace as The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (MIT Press:Cambridge, Mass , 1985). This uncompromising interpretation of the relation oftheological reflection to the rise of modern science has been unjustly neglected in theEnglish-speaking world outside the confines of social theory.

462 R H ROBERTSoverall perspective; its chief weakness is the in-built resistance toquestions of a theoretical nature which apply to the interpretation ofthe tradition as a whole and its various stages. Thus a theologianlooking at the tradition cannot ignore the profound questions raisedmost recently by Blumenburg in his notable reinterpretation of themeaning of the history of the God-hypothesis in the context of thehistory of western culture and the rise of modern science. The carefulagnosticism of the authors with regard to as it were the externalrelations and meaning of the tradition, as opposed merely to itsinternal structure and development, perhaps indicates where theactivity and interests of the pure historian of dogma are to bedistinguished from those of the theologian. Without confronting theseissues of historical meaning in the fullest and most profound sense, thequestion of the continuing contnbution of the theological tradition tothe contemporary identity of European culture and of the Church inits diverse manifestations is less than adequately represented. Thesewide-ranging qualifications do not detract from what is, in effect, afine achievement, the contents of which are briefly surveyedbelow.

The first volume of the Handbuch opens with a highly compactaccount of the earliest period from the time of Christ through toIrenaeus of Lyon by the chief editor, Carl Andresen. FollowingBultmann, Andresen begins in effect with the event of Easter andtakes this as the decisive perspective from which any reconstruction ofthe life of Jesus must proceed. Indeed, the latter 'life' could in itself,Andresen argues, never be a point of departure for a presentation ofthe history of dogma. Citing in justification Hans Grass's words,'Hinter das Kerygma gibt es kein zuruck', Andresen focuses upon the'Urdogma' of the tradition with a Goethe-like ontological confidence:'Im Anfang war das Christusdogma' (i. 4). Following Bousset andBultmann, Andresen regards the investigation of the period AD60-160 as a mutual enterprise on the part of New Testamenttheologians and historians of dogma per se. This notwithstanding,there is a certain tension in the extremely compressed text between therelatively unproblematic, even somewhat arbitrary emergence of thekerygmatic Urdogma, and the immensely complex background out ofwhich an array of further questions are poised to spring, each of whichhas been explored in the extensive secondary literature. The priorityin the Handbuch is to secure a clear starting-point for the idea of'dogma' as such and its initial development further follows Bultmanninasmuch that Andresen adopts the structure of the latter's Theologiedes Neuen Testaments, proceeding through Pauline and Johanninetheology and the deutero-Pauline materials to the Epistle of Clementand the crisis of 'early Catholicism' over against the Gnostic threat.

HISTORY WITHOUT INTERPRETATION? 463The foundations once established, the structure unfolds along fairlypredictable lines remarkable as always in the Handbuch for reliablecommand of primary sources rather than originality of interpretationas such. In the second chapter of his presentation, 'Mythos undLogos- Chnsthche Versuch zur Metaphysik', Andresen reviews thesecond century, according to Marcion fundamental status as theprincipled enemy of the Mythos-Logos axis and the tentative earlyefforts at the metaphysical embodiment of the original 'Chnstus-dogma'. Andresen then juxtaposes Basilides' and Valentinus' 'existen-tial' emphases with Justin's rational 'Logosmetaphysik' (1. 77); thelatter, together with Irenaeus' biblical theology grounded in theemergent dichotomy of scripture and tradition form the foundationfor the subsequent history of dogma. At this point the history ofexegesis passes into the historical development of theology, assimi-lated under the terms of an ecclesiologically conditioned concept ofeconomic Trinitarianian recapitulation, which, as it were, tames andreintegrates the apocalyptic and eschatological dynamism of theJewish and biblical tradition. Thus Andresen presents Irenaeus as theoriginator of the integrated basis upon which the later tradition was todepend. Without recourse to contentious notions of 'development' orlapse into the revisionist destabilization of received views, characteris-tic, say, of Maurice Wiles' 'remaking' of doctrine, Andresen criticallysafeguards the structure upon which the remaining parts of all threevolumes more or less directly depend.5

In the second part of volume I of the Handbuch (i. 99-283), AdolfMartin Ritter takes the historical account from Origen to the Councilof Chalcedon, writing in a more open textured style than hispredecessor. Particular if limited attention is given to Roman religionand its social function and to the elements in Christianity, particularlyas expounded by Ongen, which enhanced its attraction in thecompetitive spiritual world of late antiquity. The subsequentjuxtaposition of Western Latin 'juridical-institutional' and EasternGreek 'speculative-mystical' tradition is based upon expositions ofTertullian and Lactantius, the Arian controversy, and the events ofthe Council of Nicea, using for the most part French and Germansecondary sources. The accounts of post-Nicene controversy, theemergence of Cappadocian Trinitarianism, the Council of Constanti-nople (381), and the Council of Chalcedon (451) rest firmly on thesecure foundation laid by Andresen; there is a strong sense ofintegration within the parameters established in editorial policy.Again, as throughout the Handbuch, the account of the growth and

s Whilst Wiles's distinguished contributions to the discussion of the 'development ofdoctrine' are recognired by Andresen, see volume I, xin-xvi, the issues the formerraises do not feature significantly in the Handbuch.

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flowering of Chalcedonian orthodoxy is entirely untouched byquestions arising out of any partisan commitments, positive ornegative, to the contemporary status of 'classical' Christology. It isperhaps the axiomatic commitment of the authors to the centrality ofthe Reformation which liberates them from sensitivities that mightjustifiably afflict Catholic, Orthodox, or Anglican commentatorsdealing with the same epoch.

In part in of volume I (284-405) Klaus Wessel provides a masterlyand succinct account of the dogma and doctrines of the ByzantineChurch in which he contests the prejudice (traceable at least toHarnack) that Orthodox theology represents a petrifaction oftradition. F. Loofs' statement in his Lettfaden zum Studium derDogmengeschichte that 'It is scarcely possible to speak of any dogmaticdevelopment in the Greek Church since the seventh and eighthcenturies. The internal controversies are meaningless from thestandpoint of the history of dogma' (cited i. 285) is counteracted byWessel through his emphasis upon the distinctive developmentswhich did take place prior to the 'Normierung' of the seventeenthcentury. He does not hesitate to indicate the decisive, even craven,subordination of the determination of dogmatic development toimperial decision. It is this subjection that, so Wessel argues, gives theeastern tiadition its strange and alien quality when seen from thewestern standpoint. This apart, Wessel's insights into iconoclasm, hisextremely useful account of the context, content, and subsequent useof John of Damascus' influential dogmatics, his study of the mysticaltheology of Simeon the 'New Theologian' and the problematicrelation of theology and philosophy are exemplary. Wessel's descrip-tion of the growing alienation of East and West, the Hesychastcontroversy and the events leading to the Great Schism culminate inthese pregnant words applied to the fate of the Greek Churchfollowing the fall of Constantinople to the Osman Turks: 'DieOrthodoxie aber zog sich selbst zuruck, brach die Brucken zumWesten grundhch ab und- uberlebtel' (i. 405).

In the first section of the fourth part of volume I of the HandbuchEkkehard Miihlenburg tackles dogma and doctrine in the West fromAugustine to Anselm of Canterbury (i. 406-566), and then in thesecond, Martin Anton Schmidt engages with scholasticism (i.567-754). Both writers show a remarkable mastery of the primarymaterials presented in expositions noteworthy for their narrativeclarity. Miihlenburg's study, which carries the reader from thetwilight of antiquity through the so-called Dark Ages to the dawn ofscholasticism, is a tour deforce of accomplished learning. Augustine ispresented in terms of the main influences working upon him(Ciceronic scepticism, Plotinus and Neoplatonism, and Ambrose of

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Milan) and then of his conversion understood as the substitution ofManicheean cosmic dualism with a dialectic of contradictory wills, aconflict of grace with the sinful ego. In such a context the conceptionof faith as submission to authority, with its subsequent ecclesiologicalimplications, is regarded as a natural consequence. Out of Augustine'ssynthesis Muhlenburg unfolds both the continuing problematic of therelation of nature and grace and the pastoral theology of Gregory theGreat with its ambiguities of power and 'transvaluation' (Umwertung)of Augustinian theology in terms of the theory and practice ofconfession and penance as the proleptically experienced finaljudgement of God (i. 490). In the context of formal ecclesialauctoritas the task of theology became one of collection, conservation,and transmission. Those familiar with centres of theological learningin the North East of England will not fail to recognize thegenius loci inMiihlenburg's description of the dominant conservative tendenciesevident in the era of Bede (i. 499). Faith so understood as submissionto authority was legitimated through Augustine's understanding ofthe humiliation made concrete in God's self-abasement in theIncarnation. This provided the framework within which the dogmaticcompendia of Gennadius of Marseille, Fulgentius of Ruspe, andIsidore of Seville through to Alcuin (who articulated the central roleof faith in the ideology of Charlemagne's Holy Roman Empire)provided the raw material for scholastic controversy. Into thisrelatively stable environment of authoritative transmission intrudedthe disruptive energies of John Scotus with whom, in effect, the firsttentative winds of modernity penetrated into a seemingly closed worldof ideological articulation—that is despite the Carohngian con-troversies concerning adoptionism, predestination, and the Euchar-ist. Scotus' introduction along with others of the authority of reasonover against that of the Fathers and his unleashing of the full power ofChristian Platonism through the translation of (Pseudo-) Dionysiusthe Areopagite, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus the Confessor tookplace in the wider setting of an enhanced appreciation of learning, theseven artes liberales being taught as necessary to the exegesis andcomprehension of the Bible. Scotus' presentation of reason had withinit latent ambiguities: 'true reason' was not an independent principlebut 'its highest goal is this, to think in an orthodox way about God andto drive back and wholly extirpate through the true reason andauthority of the Holy Fathers the perverted doctrines of the heretics'(i. 537, citing De praed. 1. 2). Scotus' activist conception of reasondemanded, despite disclaimers of independence, an advance beyondthe mere formal representation of theological argument throughsyllogistic logic; hence the introduction of dialectic in the Periphy-seon. Miihlenburg's exposition of Scotus and his account of the latter's

466 R. H. ROBERTSlater importance should be read in conjunction with LeszekKolakowski6 and Hans Blumenberg's analyses of the same episode; inScotus we find the roots of modernity, the discovery of the ambiguityof what it is to be human: 'Human thought fulfils itself as expression ofhuman being, spoken of in the creation narrative as the image of God.Reason has thus a material principle, that is God in his revelation' (1.539). In short, reason is nothing other than God, inasmuch as hereveals himself. Any reader seriously concerned with the crisis of theEnlightenment and its aftermath will learn much here about thegenesis of the profound, intrinsic, and unresolved tensions within thewestern tradition in its widest sense; Muhlenburg has performed asignal service in expounding without distortion or prejudice thefundamental features of Scotus' thought in relation to its historicalcontext and contemporary controversy. The dialectic of division andreturn, of a divine-human self-creation and self-manifestation, inwhich God, nature, and human reason are all participants, had, as itwere, to be contained and tamed within Christological and predestina-rian confines. What Muhlenburg exposes is, however, that dynamic,dialectical core that finally burns its way into contemporary humanconsciousness through Hegel's Phdnomenologie des Geistes (1807)centuries later.

The riches contained in the remainder of volume I of the Handbuchrightly resist brief summary. Names associated with the monasticschools of Auxerre and Chartres and then the better-known figures ofBerengar of Tours, Lanfranc of Bee, and finally Anselm all emergeinto contextual relation from the relative obscurity of individualaccounts in secondary texts. Most interestingly, Muhlenburg contri-butes to the 'protestant' substructure of the Handbuch by conceivingof Anselm's sola ratione in the CurDeus Homo as a springboard for theReformation itself. Scholasticism is, by contrast, understood byMuhlenburg as a renewed critical engagement with transmittedauthority rather than the exploration of Anselm's programme asimplied in the sola ratione. In this way scholasticism avoided, it issuggested, complete reduction of the self into reason. No reader canfail to benefit from Muhlenburg's masterly account of the period fromAugustine to Anselm: at the very least we gain insight into the modesof theological 'repetition' through which the Christian tradition hassought to revitalize itself.

Adolf Martin Ritter concludes volume I of the Handbuch with anaccount of scholasticism from Lanfranc to Nicholas of Cusa. Here

6 L. Kolakowski, 'The Origins of Dialectic', chapter I of volume I of Main Currentsof Marxism, its nse, grmcth and dissolution (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1978). This is abrilliant one-sided attempt at the interpretation of the developments under considera-tion at this point in the Handbuch.

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particular attention is given to the gradual divergence of cathedral andseminary schools from the monastic institutions and to the systematicordering and classification of quaestiones and sententtae as contrastedwith the mere collection of authoritative material. The work of PeterAbelard, Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugh of St Victor, Joachim of Fiore,and Peter Lombard is reviewed at length along with the many otherless well-known figures of the epoch. The recrudescence of Aristote-lian and Neoplatonic thought is related to the pursuit of theology as auniversity discipline and its systematic methodological differentiationfrom philosophy in terms largely dictated by Aristotle's conception of'first philosophy'. From this stemmed, so Schmidt argues, thedisconnection of 'metaphysics' from 'salvation history' (1. 624). Onthis basis Albert the Great and Roger Bacon were able to widen thebifurcation of theology and philosophy into a more comprehensiveencyclopaedia of nature- and grace-based knowledge. With theBaconian principle: 'argumentum non sufficit sed expenmentia' (i.649) the opening up of a scientia experientalis was attended, soSchmidt maintains, with the introduction of the dimension ofmventio, and thus the thought of progress entered theology.

In his treatment of Thomas Aquinas, Schmidt focuses upon theresolution of the relation of nature and grace under the subtitle'Vollendung der Natur durch die Gnade' (i. 6. 51-83), approachingthis from the standpoint of Aquinas' analysis of the intellect and in thiscontext sacra doctrina is carefully distinguished in relation to thefundamental issues in his wider epistemology. Schmidt's compactaccount of the relation of the Summa Theologiae and the Summacontra Gentiles is demanding because compressed, but neverthelessinformative: from both he traces a specific tension between salvationhistory and the metaphysics of being to Neo-Thomism and Neo-Hegelianism, drawing attention in particular to Jacques Maritain andErich Przywara. The end of the scholastic period is handled as wemight anticipate primarily in terms of the controversy over theAverroist interpretation of Aristotle's conception of the eternity of theworld advanced by Siger of Brabant, a teaching duly condemned inParis. The attempted resolution of the struggle between Dominicanand Franciscan intellectual traditions by John Duns Scotus ispresented by Schmidt in terms of the objective determination of therelation between revealed theology and metaphysics. This analysis ofDuns Scotus' ontology is so compressed and lacking in narrativestructure as to verge upon unintelligibihty to any reader lackingfirst-hand knowledge of the primary texts. In addition individualexpositions are virtually autonomous and lack linking, summarypassages which might well have preserved a greater sense ofcontinuity. The tension between the effort required on the one hand

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to expound primary texts and that on the other necessary to representthe history of dogma as Getstesgeschichte is very considerable. Someknowledge of other accounts of the period would help to renderintelligible the extremely difficult material that is presented at thisjuncture. Schmidt continues with a review of the emergence of the viamoderna in relation to Meister Eckhart and William of Ockham seeingthis movement as a 'reformed scholasticism' rather than a new schoolset over against earlier tradition. Whereas the mystical successors ofMeister Eckhart turned to the development of an ethical and pastoralinwardness, it is the radical biblicism of John Wyclif in the latefourteenth-century 'Augustine Renaissance' which particularlyattracts Schmidt's attention. Wyclif's theological realism (expressedin the truth value of Holy Scripture and his consequent critique of thecentralized hierarchy) amounted to a demand for the depotentiationof the Church (1. 734). Here once again the editor's Reformation-orientated hermeneutic of the dogmatic tradition locates in Eckhartand Wyclif forerunners of that later inwardness and biblicistecclesiological criticism which were central to Reformation piety.Schmidt concludes his contribution with three subsections on theReform Councils, the ecclesiology of Hus, and on Nicholas of Cusa.The important discussion of the latter is set in the ecclesiologicalcontext of the Councils of Basel (1431-49) and of Ferrara-Florenceand Rome (1438-45). The concihar principles of John of Ragusa andthe hierarchical integralism of John de Torquemada are juxtaposedwith the Wycliffite reduction of the Church to the number of the electand the late medieval emergence of pious, spiritual minorities.Against the static regimen regale of Torquemada's Summa de ecclestaSchmidt sets the dialectical genius of Nicholas of Cusa. For the latterthe Church was to be conceived as the realization of the divineunfolding of the one in the many: the binding in (complicata) of theChurch in Christ and the unfolding (explicata) of grace are mutuallyrealized, not antithetical concepts. In the foundational De doctaignorantia (1440), complicatio and explicatio are presented inconvergent juxtaposition as cmncidentia oppositorum. Here Schmidttraces a highly important contrast between an intellectual methodreliant upon doctrines of analogy that emphasizes and attempts tobridge ontological disjunction, and a dialectical conception of divinebeing which contains within itself the potential to make itself knownwithin the ambit of recognitional capacity. It is thus once more with aforerunner of Hegel that a hiatus in the tradition is located andcrystallized.

With the second volume of the Handbuch we enter a very differentworld, freed as it were from the persistent philosophical undertones ofthe first. There is an undeniable break between the first and the

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second volumes of the Handbuch which is not effectively bridged.After the extended methodological foreword to which reference wasmade earlier, the reader is plunged into consideration of what isundoubtedly for the editor the pivotal passage in the whole trilogy,that is Luther's Reformation 'breakthrough' in his exposition of thePsalms and rediscovery of Pauline exegesis. Bernhard Lohse'streatment of dogma and confession in the Reformation from Luther tothe Book of Concord (li. I - I 64) is not, in the judgement of this writer,adequately related to the intellectual crisis depicted in various aspectsat the end of the first volume of the Handbuch. This said, however,the contents of the second volume are well integrated and relativelyuniform in their organization. The second part of volume II consistsin a study of the period from Zwingli and Calvin to the Synod ofWestminster by Wilhelm Neuser; the third part is a succinct anduseful presentation of the development of doctrine in Anglicanismfrom Henry VIII to William Temple by Gunther Gassman; fourth,an outline of dogma in tndentine Catholicism by the late WilhelmDantine; fifth, an outstanding report on Orthodox theology from thesixteenth century to the present day by Reinhard Slenczka; and, inconclusion, an exploration of spiritualist and Anabaptist teachingoutside the confessional Churches by Gustav Adolf Benrath. Whereasin volume I the general intellectual crises of developing Christendomwere understood as at root theological, in volume II a disjunctionbetween the history of theology as such and other developments istacitly assumed. Here we find extended and textually well-groundedreports upon the inauguration and history of confessional theology,standing largely, as it were, on its own. Whilst always well informed,these essays in volume II are relatively uninspired. This is becausethey cover what is well-trodden ground within intellectual guidelineswhich do not permit wider, exploratory discussion. An exception tothis is Slenczka's remarkable study of Orthodox theology which isbuilt upon a wide command of Greek and Russian sources; as a briefsurvey this essay is at present probably unrivalled. The secondvolume as a whole will function primarily as a work of reference ratherthan a cohesive account of the intellectual, albeit theological, historyof the Reformation period, for whilst the textual and source-criticalfoundations are unexceptionable, the manifest lack of functionalinsights drawn from historical, sociological, or philosophical disci-plines generates a tedious text. That much was written, much was saidand much suffered is evident; why the Reformation took place, why itunderwent internal developments, and how it influenced subsequentsocial and economic change constitute questions which scarcelyfeature in this monumental volume. It is, perhaps, excusable thatsuch issues are largely absent given a strict interpretation of the

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project of writing a Handbuch der Dogmen- und Theologiegeschichtebut it is precisely the sensitivities found in Harnack, Troeltsch,Weber, Werner, or Blumenberg which make accessible and meaning-ful these major historical episodes. The academicist separation off ofthe history of theology of the Reformation tends to lend the luxuriantcontroversies a spurious ideological substance and at the same timedistances their significance from all those not committed a priori totheir importance. Nevertheless, despite these limitations, the secondvolume of the Handbuch will remain a necessary starting-point for theadvanced student and the putative researcher in the area ofReformation studies.

The third and final volume of the Handbuch is different incharacter again as it covers the modern period from early humanismand protestant orthodoxy through the Enlightenment to thenineteenth and twentieth centuries. The relatively uncritical repre-sentation of the Reformation as a seemingly self-subsistent entity involume II is reinforced by the entirely separate presentation ofhumanism and anti-Trinitarianism as the threshold of the modernera. Thus the Reformation, despite its pivotal role in the grand designof the Handbuch, is implicitly understood as the culmination andrenewal of the earlier tradition as shorn of its philosophicalembarrassments through Luther's 'Durchbruch'. The key ground-motives of volume I, seen in the latent tensions between nature andgrace, human and divine self-knowledge, and the mode of relation ofthe human and divine spheres through analogy or dialectic wereeffectively eclipsed in volume II in the interests of monolithichistorical and textual exposition of confessional theology. That theReformation era was uneasy and at root ambiguous (as in the'Janus-faced' Luther) is not a theme explored. There is a delayedtheoretical and critical reckoning made in the opening paragraphs ofvolume III, where the diverse and contentious interpretations ofhumanism are confronted in a way that the account of theReformation by and large escapes within the plan adopted by theeditor of the Handbuch. Whereas the biographies of the majortheologians and the successive confessional statements of theReformation provide a ready basis for the continuity of unifiednarrative exposition, the phenomenon of humanism is in principle adisputed concept, as Gustave Adolf Benrath indicates in the openingparagraphs of his study of humanism and anti-Tnmtarianism at thebeginning of volume III. Here it is recognized that the interpretationof the relation of the Renaissance and humanism to the Reformation islikewise a disputed question. In a short passage (iii. 3-6) Benrathreviews the influence of Jacob Burckhardt's Kultur und Renaissancein Italien (i860) and then that of Dilthey and Troeltsch upon the

HISTORY WITHOUT INTERPRETATION5 471question as to how the Reformation itself features as a factor in the riseof the modern world and how its relation to humanism should beunderstood. This engaging interlude is all too brief and indeedinconclusive. According to Benrath the question of the influence ofhumanism on the history of the theology of the Reformation as suchand in particular on the confessional theology of the sixteenth centuryis as yet unanswered owing to insufficient research. There then followsurveys of Italian, Spanish, and French humanism which are carriedover into the Netherlands and England. Erasmus of Rotterdam isrightly accorded pride of place and the review is completed with abrief but once more informative account of Hugo Grotius, the pivotalfigure whose theological sympathies are here stressed, in particular hisconcern with the priority of Church unity over against reform (iii. 48).Benrath accords key importance to the post-Reformation phe-nomenon of anti-Trinitanianism. Michael Servetus' theology is givenpriority in this section and other anti-dogmatic and anti-Trinitarianprotestants in Italy are presented as the forerunners of PolishUnitarianism and seventeenth-century Socinianism. The wholeextended episode is understood in terms of H. E. Weber's judgement(1951) that: 'Socinianism is a nodal point in the development ofintellectual history. In it are swallowed up many strands from themiddle ages and the early modern period. From it lines flow forwardright into our present era' {cited iii. 52).

The second part of volume III of the Handbuch by GottfriedHornig takes us from early protestant orthodoxy through to thestaurological tnnitananism of Eberhard Jungel and Jurgen Moltmann(iii. 71-287). Those searching for potential doctoral themes will beheartened to learn that the intricacies of protestant orthodoxy are in anearly stage of research. Of particular interest and importance areHornig's outline of the emergence of the doctrine of 'fundamentalarticles' (iii. 83 ff.) and, above all, his account of the undermining ofneo-Aristotelian scholasticism (and thus of the foundation of earlyprotestant orthodoxy) by Cartesianism from the mid-seventeenthcentury onwards. The resistance to Cartesianism on the part ofprotestant orthodoxy left it with the stigma of being seen as the enemyof science and progress. Hornig's presentation of Pietism indicates thewide-ranging diversity within the overall movement which had bothconservative and radical consequences. The key elements of biblicismand a reawakened interest in eschatology contained the seeds of lateracute tensions. Following this, English Deism is traced from Herbertof Cherbury through Locke and Toland to its reception in Germany,and the transition from protestant orthodoxy to enlightenmenttheology. Despite the complex internal structure of protestantenlightenment theology the central themes and figures emerge with

472 R. H. ROBERTSclarity. For the project embodied in theHandbuch the work of JohannSalomo Semler (1725-91) is of striking importance. Whereas it isusual to be aware of H. S. Reimarus and the WolffenbuttelFragments,the analogous reinterpretation of early Church history by Semler isless well known but is of equal epochal significance. The discovery ofthe theological opposition between Pauline freedom and legalisticJewish Christianity attributed to Semler (111. 138) was transmitted toF. C. Baur and then into the history of dogma as developed in thenineteenth century. Semler's Historische Einleitung in die dogmat-ische Gottesgelehrsamkeit (Halle, 1764) and works by S. G. Lange(1796) and Wilhelm Munscher (1797-1809) established the inde-pendence of the history of dogma as a theological discipline. Oncemore in the passage (lii. 138—46) the raison d'etre of Dogmen-geschichte emerges briefly from the immense, structured learning ofthe Handbuch, bringing to enhanced life a text largely expository incharacter. Hornig's account of the interconnection of the interpreta-tion of the history of dogma as a developmental process with theexposure of the questions as to the 'essence of Christianity' casts lightupon the whole underlying structure of the post-Enlightenmenttheological enterprise as an intellectual discipline. Hornig then turnsto the mainstream of nineteenth-century theology, examiningSchleiermacher and Hegel and the various streams of post-Hegeliantheology in an account with a clear schematic structure but lesscontextual sensitivity. The near absence of the latter makes the rapidsuccession of sketches of somewhat unconnected (although chrono-logically contiguous) episodes from Semler and Lessing to Schleier-macher and Hegel, and then to the later conflicts within thenineteenth century and to Kierkegaard and his influence, a less thansatisfactory account of the history of theology as an element within theemergent matrix of modernity. This is, perhaps, the product of apotentially impossible agenda restricted, somewhat artificially, to aprimary focus upon theology as such. As ever the individual accountsare competent and reliable, lacking ideological intrusion. As a basicbut often detailed map of the territory Hornig's study is excellent; butequally as an interpretative account of the history of dogma andtheology many really interesting questions remain suppressed. Oncemore at the conclusion of Hornig's account of the nineteenth centuryin Germany (lii. 210-20) it becomes apparent that Harnack andTroeltsch made far greater commitments to the interpretation of themeaning and function of dogma than the authors of the present workare themselves prepared to venture. There is no more candidadmission than Hornig's remark that: 'the whole of recent protestantwriting on the history of dogma up until the present has remained acritical discussion of Harnack's conception without having displaced


his presentation with an equal achievement' (in. 212). TheHandbuchis no exception. The consequences of Harnack's approach and moreparticularly those of Troeltsch's sociological interpretation aremanifest: the integrity of single purpose within the whole tradition ischallenged. The mere recapitulation in historical terms of thattradition, however competent, cannot in this reviewer's judgement bea substitute for engagement with these issues.

The twentieth century, understood under the rubric of 'continuityand crisis', is presented by Hornig in passages focused successivelyupon Swedish theology (E. Billing, N. Soderblom, A. Nygren, andG. Aulen), dialectical theology, the German Church struggle (withparticular emphasis upon the disputed status of the BarmenErkldrung), and the post-war era (1945-80). This could not bethought the strongest part of the Handbuch, possibly because theintrusion of fundamental theological pluralism into the Christiantheological tradition (both as regards it methodological 'form' andtruth-functional 'content') does not lend itself to the narrative andexpository style employed in consideration of the prevenient tradi-tion, which, as we have seen, is largely successful in pragmatichistorical terms even if defective as an act of interpretation.

The third part of volume III of the Handbuch by the late WilhelmDantine and his former pupil Eric Hultsch (in. 289-423) is a study ofdoctrine and the development of dogma in Roman Catholicism. Thissubstantial passage is based upon wide-ranging primary research butthe result, doubtless damaged by Professor Dantine's death, is lessthan wholly satisfactory. Whereas the intellectual hegemony ofProtestant theology to some degree disguises its historical andsociological involvement with the impression given that ideasdetermine the context rather than the reverse, the political, social, andhistorical crisis of Roman Catholicism and its loss of temporal powermake the thoroughgoing historical placement of the development ofits doctrine essential. The absence of such a coherent overarchinginterpretation of the ongoing relationship of Roman Catholicism withthe forces of modernity on all levels vitiates Dantine's account inwhich an immense mass of partially differentiated material strugglestowards incomplete organization. There is here intellectual half-digestion on a grand scale redeemed by subsections which possessclarity and direction, the brief outline of the history of the CatholicTubingen school being an example. This said, the account is a mine ofinformation; the reader's sympathy and appreciation is with ProfessorHultsch who must have faced a daunting task of retrieval. Thedoctrine of papal infallibility, the Second Vatican Council, andMariology are given considerable attention. It is with regard to thelatter that the personal prejudices of one of the authors of the

474 R. H. ROBERTSHandbuch intrudes noticeably for the first time: the 'virulent'development of the Mariendogma 'frothing over' on the precariousbasis of popular piety, theological research, and official sanctionclearly offended Professor Dantine's theological sensibility (in. 3.79-80). The presentation of Vatican II largely from a Marianstandpoint is unfortunate.

The Handbuch is concluded with an extended study by ReinhardSlenczka (iii. 426-603) of the ecumenical movement under the title'Dogma and Church unity'. Slenczka's presentation is an exemplaryhistorical integration of diverse and fragmented material, previouslyoften organized biographically around the personalities who partici-pated in this quest for unity rather than more objective historicalfactors. As Slenczka observes, the inter-traditional and sociallyconditioned character of the ecumenical movement and its contextpresent different difficulties from the relatively straightforwarddescription of 'dogma and Church unity'. Eschatological unity in theelect community conflicts with the boundaries of the empiricalChurch. Faced with this dilemma the World Council of Churches isitself a limited, provisional organization: 'an instrument of unity, butnot in itself a realisation of unity' (iii. 428). Slenczka provides acomprehensive outline of the history of ecumenism from thefoundations of the Evangelical Alliance (1846) through the contrast-ing yet complementary impulses of 'Faith and Order' and 'Life andWork' to the unified World Council of Churches (1948). The progressof the ecumenical movement staged largely through conferences givesrise to such problems as the status of 'Konferenztheologie' and its'Rezeption'. Slenczka notes the strong 'Anglo-Saxon' influence uponthe ecumenical movement and the prolonged engagement withso-called 'non-theological factors' in the ongoing discussion and thedifficulties in securing a preliminary basic Christian confession in theconstitution of the WCC. Slenczka has a clear grasp of the dilemmaunderlying the ecumenical movement that consists in the ultimatenon-identity of practical community and defined unity. Thisconstitutes a permanent aporia inasmuch as the definition of suchunity cannot be separated from the distinction between truth andfalsehood, and is not to be derived from a consensus withoutcontradiction, but worked at in relation to the question of the 'trueChurch'. The author does not allow such a relativization ofecumenical endeavour to impede or foreshorten his exposition thattakes the reader through the WCC conferences of Amsterdam (1948),Evanston (1954), New Delhi (1961), Uppsala (1965), Nairobi(1975), to the media-dominated, emotional irrationalism of Van-couver (1983) which Slenczka does not hesitate to condemn (iii. 544).In the concluding pages such relatively contemporary issues as the


theology of liberation and the radical reworking of theologicalreflection on the basis of its context briefly appear, although theHandbuch cannot, all in all, be thought to provide a full account of thelast two decades of theological work, most particularly in NorthAmerica. The conclusion of this mighty work with the juxtapositionof unity and truth (ni, 602-3) in the context of the most wide-reachingand uncompromising pluralism in the history of the West indicates afuture theological agenda. The lively and well-defined diversity of thetradition reviewed in the Handbuch contrasts with the decline andexile of ecumenical dialogue into a special zone, a linguistic Ga2aStrip, where it thrives at some distance from the living, sociallyconditioned realities of individual churches. If ecumenical 'Kon-ferenztheologie' in all its tedious repetitiveness described with greatpatience by Slenczka were in fact to be the model for the theology ofthe future, then the outlook is grim indeed.

The Handbuch der Dogmen- und Theologiegeschichte is animpressive but imperfect work. The shadow of Harnack lies heavilyupon it and the reader is constantly aware of the dimensions of theformer's achievement in a project which, however well informed andindispensable as a reference work, fails in the final account toreformulate and address fundamental questions first put forward byHarnack and then, in sociologically qualified form, by Troeltsch andothers. It is not merely that the latter had the ambition to produceindividual interpretations of the whole tradition and its diversity, butthat they were also prepared through an interdisciplinary catholicityof outlook to confront issues quite self-consciously suppressed in thiswork. The repressed questions do not, however, disappear but glintthrough at vital (and noticeably more interesting) junctures in amassive text. The self-imposed task of narrative reconstruction andrecitation of the structure of particular theologies is conducted interms of a very limited conception of what dogma is as the primary,authoritative and intellectually focused core of a theologicaltradition.7 That such a focus arises in response to contextual needs

7 The range and diversity of the meanings of 'dogma' in recent theological literature isremarkable. The standard encyclopaedia articles provide a starting-point. Importantintroductory discussions arc to be found in K. Barth, Chnsthche Dogmatik (Munchen,1927), 121-5; Chuich Dogmatics (Edinburgh, 1975), I/i, 165 ff.; W. Pannenberg,'What is a Dogmatic Statement?' in Basic Questions in Theology (SCM. London,1970), vol. I, 182-210; E. Schhnk, 'The Structure of Dogmatic statements as anecumenical problem', in The Chnst and the Coming Church (Edinburgh, 1967), 16-84.The title of the Handbuch itself indicates the necessary ambiguity in presenting dogmain its context in the history of theology. This is a changing relationship, not least in thetwentieth century during which Protestant theology has, in modified forms,repristinated 'dogma' under the influence of Barth, whereas Catholic theology hasconversely absorbed the more overtly Protestant theme of 'Heilsgeschichtc' into itsunderstanding of dogma, most markedly in Mystenum Salutis

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and is in constant interaction with such institutional factors asideology is recognized but not expressed in the kind of moresophisticated theoretical framework which would turn an extendednarrative text into an interpretative work of the first order, capable ofsuperseding Harnack's achievement. Until and unless professionalhistorians of dogma can exhibit really effective interdisciplinaryinsight and a relentless drive towards comprehensive grasp thenstudents of theology will have to remain content with work that isinformed, but as in this instance not inspired. The Handbuch is anoutstanding achievement, but it could conceivably have been better iffreed from certain self-imposed academicist limitations. Regardless ofthis, however, these volumes remain a monument to the energy andapplication of German scholarship, its generous funding and itscontinuing excellence.

R. H. ROBERTS

at yale university on october 2, 2013

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