owards theology, and
ecclesiastical theology a corresponding position towards dogma; for they
are condemned to perpetual uncertainty as to what they owe each other,
and what they have to fear from each other. The theological Fathers of
dogma have almost without exception failed to escape being condemned by
dogma, either because it went beyond them, or lagged behind their
theology. The Apologists, Origen and Augustine may be cited in support
of this; and even in Protestantism, _mutatis mutandis_, the same thing
has been repeated, as is proved by the fate of Melanchthon and
Schleiermacher. On the other hand, there have been few theologians who
have not shaken some article of the traditional dogma. We are wont to
get rid of these fundamental facts by hypostatising the ecclesiastical
principle or the common ecclesiastical spirit, and by this normal
hypostasis, measuring, approving or condemning the doctrines of the
theologians, unconcerned about the actual conditions and frequently
following a hysteron-proteron. But this is a view of history which
should in justice be left to the Catholic Church, which indeed cannot
dispense with it. The critical history of dogma has, on the contrary, to
shew above all how an ecclesiastical theology has arisen; for it can
only give account of the origin of dogma in connection with this main
question. The horizon must be taken here as wide as possible; for the
question as to the origin of theology can only be answered by surveying
all the relations into which the Christian religion has entered in
naturalising itself in the world and subduing it. When ecclesiastical
dogma has once been created and recognised as an immediate expression of
the Christian religion, the history of dogma has only to take the
history of theology into account so far as it has been active in the
formation of dogma. Yet it must always keep in view the peculiar claim
of dogma to be a criterion and not a product of theology. But it will
also be able to shew how, partly by means of theology and partly by
other means--for dogma is also dependent on ritual, constitution, and
the practical ideals of life, as well as on the letter, whether of
Scripture, or of tradition no longer understood--dogma in its
development and re-expression has continually changed, according to the
conditions under which the Church was placed. If dogma is originally the
formulation of Christian faith as Greek culture understood it and
justified it to