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History: Sacred and Secular

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Lewis W. Spitz
Lewis W. Spitz
Affiliation:
professor of history in Stanford University, Stanford, California. This Presidential Address was delivered at the annual meeting of the Society, December 28, 1977.
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Extract

Jacob Burckhardt somewhat naively recorded that when he first came to the University of Berlin to study history, his eyes opened wide with astonishment at the first lectures he heard by Leopold von Ranke, Gustav Droysen and Philipp August Böckh. He realized that the same thing had befallen him as befell the knight Don Quixote, for he had loved his science on hearsay and suddenly here it was appearing before him in gigantic proportions and he had to lower his eyes. The occasion of delivering a presidential address to an august society of scholars, following on the podium historians of great distinction, and speaking on a topic of such magnitude is an equally humbling experience.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , March 1978 , pp. 5 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1978

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References

1. Ausubel, Herman, Historians and Their Craft: A Study of the Presidential Addresses of the AHA, 1884–1945 (New York, 1950), p. 11.Google Scholar

2. McGill, William J., “Something of worth from Boetia: The Presidential Addresses of the American Catholic Historical Association, 1920–1968,” The Catholic Historical Review 56 (1970): 25–41, 25–26.Google Scholar

3. Bowden, Henry Warner, Church History in the Age of Science. Historiographical Patterns in the United States 1876–1918 (Chapel Hill, 1971).Google Scholar He found no such easy identification of the AHA with secular history and the ASCH with church history, for many of the scholars were active in both organizations and the themes for researth widel variegated.

4. Nichols, James Hastings, “The Art of Church History,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 20 (1951): 3–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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6. See the parallel eloquent statement by Richardson, Cyril, “Church History Past and Present,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 11, 1949.Google Scholar

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9. His concluding Citation could be understood as a point of departure for the address of Clebsch, William, Florovsky, Georges, “The Predicament of the Christian Historian,” Religion and Culture: Essays in Honor of Paul Tillich, ed. Leibrecht, Walter (New York, 1959), p. 166:Google Scholar “The purpose of a historical understanding is not so much to detect the divine action in history as to understand the human action—that is, human activities— in the bewildering variety and confusion in which they appear to the human observer.”

10. Clebsch, William, “Toward a History of Christianity,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 43 (1974): 5–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarThe fully developed treatment of this theme will appear as a book under the title Christianity in European History (New York, 1978).Google Scholar

11. See the review by Ellis, John Tracy of Clebsch, William, From Sacred to Profane America: The Role of Religion in American History (New York, 1968) in the Catholic Historical Review 56 (1970): 149–150,Google Scholar in which he comments on the sacred-secular theme as the “in” thing at the moment. The general theme of Concilium 47 (1969)Google Scholar is Sacralization and Secularization. Variations run from Dietrich Bonhoeffer and John A. T. Robinson to the God is dead folk.

12. Historians do not merely assemble data but necessarily work within an interpretive framework of basic values and ideas which make the data intelligible for them and communicable to others. Some studies of special interest to the church historian are Harvey, Van Austin, The Historian and the Believer: The Morality of Historical Knowledge and Christian Belief (New York, 1966);Google ScholarNichols, James Hastings, “Church History and Secular History,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 13 (1944): 87–99;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMead, Sidney E., “Church History Explained,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 32 (1963): 17–31;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMeyerhoff, Hans, ed., The Philosophy of History in Our Time (Garden City, New York, 1959),Google Scholar containing the famous essay by Carl Becker, “What are Historical Facts?;” Ellis, John Tracy, “The Ecclesiastical Historian in the Service of Clio,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 38 (1969): 106–120;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHarbison, E. Harris, “The ‘Meaning of History’ and the Writing of History,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 21 (1952): 97–107;CrossRefGoogle ScholarSykes, Norman, The Study of Ecclesiastical History, an inaugural lecture given at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 17 May, 1945 (Cambridge, 1945).Google ScholarThree highly regarded general theoretical inquiries into the Status of history and historical method are Theory and Practice in Historical Study: A Report of the Committee on Historiography, Social Science Research Council Bulletin 54 (New York, 1946);Google ScholarGottschalk, Louis, ed., Generalization in the Writing of History (Chicago, 1963),Google Scholar especially the essay by Potter, David, “Explicit Data and Implicit Assumptions in Historical Study,” pp. 168–194;Google Scholar and Delzell, Charles, ed., The Future of History (Nashville, Tenn., 1976),Google Scholar including such essays as Lawrence Stone, “History and the Social Sciences in the Twentieth Century,” Stephan Thernstrom, “The New Urban History,” Kenneth Lockridge, “Historical Demography,” Paul K, Conkin, “Intellectual History: Past, Present, and Future,” and others. See also Steinmetz, David C., “The Necessity of the Past,” Theology Today 07, 1976, pp. 168–176.Google Scholar

13. I owe this lovely citation to one of my own favorite history professors, who always understood how to relate church history and secular history, Mullett, Charles F., “The Proper Study of Mankind is—Improvement,” The Roy M. Wiles Memorial Lecture, MacMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario, 1977), p. 1.Google Scholar

14. Pauck, Wilhelm, “The Idea of the Church in Christian History,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 21 (1952): 191–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15. Smalcald Articles, III, 12:Google ScholarDe Ecclesia, in Concordia Triglot (St. Louis, 1921), p. 498;Google ScholarThe Book of Concord, trans, and ed., Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia, 1959), p. 315.Google Scholar

16. E.g., Herbert Adams, an important figure in the founding of the AHA, wrote: “History is Past Politics and Politics is Present History.” Bowden, , Church History, p. 23.Google Scholar

17. See Johnson, Roger, Psychohistory and Religion (Philadelphia, 1977)Google Scholar and Capps, Donald et al. , Encounters with Erikson (Missoula, Mont., 1977).Google Scholar

18. Sykes, , Ecclesiastical History, p. 27.Google Scholar

19. American church historians have indeed been remiss in writing major multi-volumed syntheses since Schaff's History of the Christian Church, in eight volumes, despite the merits of Roland Bainton, Williston Walker as revised, and Kenneth Scott Latourette, a summary of his history of the expansion of Christianity. However, there are various multiple authorship European series which in varying degree emphasize the modern period and include some of the newer emphases, e.g., Fliche, Augistin and Martin, Victor, eds., Histoire de l'Eglise depuis les origines jusqu'à nos jours (Paris, 1935);Google ScholarJedin, Hubert, ed., Handbuch des Kirchengeschichte, 6 vols. (Freiburg i. Br., 1962);Google ScholarRogier, L. J., Aubert, R. and Knowles, M. D., eds., The Christian Centuries 5 vols. (London and New York, 1964— );Google ScholarChadwick, Owen, ed., The Pelican History of the Church, 6 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.. 1968— );Google ScholarSchmidt, K. D. and Wolf, E., eds., Die Kirche in ihrer Geschichte. Ein Handbush, 4 vols. (Göttingen, 1961— ).Google Scholar They are discussed by Adelbert Davids et al., historians of the Theological Faculty of Nijmegen University, “Church History: A Survey of Major Modern Publications,” Church History in Future Perspective, ed. Roger Aubert, Concilium (New York, 1970), pp. 111–125.Google Scholar

20. Oberman, Heiko A., “Reformation: Epoche oder Episode,” pp. 56–111;Google ScholarGrane, Leif, “Lutherforschung und Geistesgeschichte. Auseinandersetzung mit Heiko A. Oherman,” pp. 302–315.Google Scholar

21. Grane, Leif, Modus Loquendi Theologicus. Luthers Kampf um die Erneuerung der Theologie (1515–1518) (Leiden, 1975).Google Scholar

22. Heiko Oberman recognizes the need to Construct a framework over which the canvas of history can be stretched and the inadequacy of a mere positivistic reconstruction of historical data. In his most recent volume he breaks out of the magic circle of theology and Geistesgeschichte to consider the Reformation as a territorial and urban phenomenon, Werden und Wertung der Reformation. Vom Wegestreit zum Glaubenskampf (Tübingen, 1977), pp. 336ff., pp. 349ff.Google Scholar

23. See the incisive criticism of Hexter, J. H. in the Journal of Modern History 44 (1972),CrossRefGoogle Scholar which contains evaluations of Braudel's work by Hexter, H. R. Trevor-Roper, and Braudel himself.

24. Jacques Gadille, “Sociology and Religious History: A General View of the Literature,” Roger, Aubert, Concilium, pp. 126–137,Google Scholar discusses the work of J. Toussaert, J. Ferté, G. Cholvy, M. D. Chenu, E. Pin, G. Vovelle, and others. A useful discussion of the French literature exploring the relation of religion and society is Russo, Carlo, “Studi recenti di storia e religiosa in Francia: Problemi e metodi,” Rivista storica italiana 84 (1972): 625–682.Google Scholar A brave attempt to apply social and economic questions to church history is the work of Kantzenbach, Friedrich Wilhelm, Christentum in der Gesellschaft. Grundlinien der Kirchengeschichte, 1, Alte Kirche und Mittelalter (Hamburg, 1975), 2,Google ScholarReformation und Neuzeit (Hamburg, 1976).Google Scholar One might add historians such as E. Ladurie on Provence, Robert Brentano on England and Italy, Davis, Natalie on Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford, 1975),Google ScholarMidelfort, H. C. Erik, Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany 1562–1684 (Stanford, 1972),Google Scholar or Tentler, Thomas N., Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation (Princeton, 1977).Google Scholar On Cliometrics see the hilarious piece by John Clive, “The Great Historians in the Age of Cliometrics,” under “Amusement and Instruction,” Times Literary Supplement 03 7, 1975, pp. 255–256.Google Scholar

25. Lutz, Heinrich, “Profangeschichte—Kirchengeschichte—Heilsgeschichte,” Kirchengeschichte heute. Geschichtswissenschaft oder Theologie?, ed. Kottje, Raymund (Trier, 1970), pp. 75–94, 81.Google Scholar

26. Meinhold, Peter, “Weltgeschichte—Kirchengeschichte—Heilsgeschichte,” Saeculum 9 (1958): 280,CrossRefGoogle Scholar cited by Heinrich Lutz, op. cit., p. 84. See also Meinhold, Peter, Geschichte der kirchlichen Historiographie, I (Freiburg and Munich, 1967).Google Scholar

27. Lutz, , Profangeschichte, pp. 85–86.Google Scholar In his German History in the Age of the Reformation (1842),Google Scholar Leopold von Ranke formulated the postulate that ecclesiastical and political history are indissolubly connected, for authentically religious forces are continually interwoven with political forces.

28. Wright, Gordon, “History as a Moral Science,” American Historical Review 81 (1976): 1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This AHA presidential address reawakens a faint echo of the pleas of liberals and religious folk in times past for an ethical and humane outlook in the writing of history: “Our search for truth ought to be quite consciously suffused by a commitment to some deeply held humane values.” One of Mattingly's famous statements reads: “Nor does it matter at all to the dead whether they receive justice at the hands of succeeding generations. But to the living, to do justice, however belatedly, should matter.” As Luther observed in his Scholien zu Jesaja: Hic historiarum usus est quod docent conscientias. WA 25, 142.

29. See the learned, thoughtful, and characteristically incisive presidential address of Cochrane, Eric, “What is Catholic Historiography?” The Catholic Historical Review 61 (1975): 169–190.Google Scholar A beautiful highly theological statement is Kenneth Latourette, Scott, “The Christian Understanding of History,” American Historical Review 54 (1949): 259–276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. He remembers Francis Bacon's saying that “truth is the daughter of time.” He can empathize with the statement which Thomas More attributed to King Ladislaus: “I pray thee, good fellows, when thou sayest grace at my board, never bring in a gloria patri without a sicut erat. Any act that ever I did, if thou report it again to my honor with a gloria patri, never report it but with a sicut erat, that is, to wit, even as it was and none otherwise, and lift me not up with no lies. For I love it not.”

31. Heinrich Böhmer paid this tribute to those historians who do the dull or the exciting archival work and basic monographs so demanding of patience: “Es ist doch gut, dass es immer noch leute gibt, die in der sonst glücklich überwundenen suballernen Manier der Historiker es für nötig halten, ‘das Gras von den Gräbern der Vergangenheit abzuweichen.’ Wer weisz, mit was für Wundern wir von der neuen Kulturphilosophie, die keiner Quellenstudien bedarf, sondern nur etlicher grosser Ideen, eines grossen Vorrats an Fremdwörtern und eines männlichen, weiblichen oder sächlichen Diktierapparats, sonst noch begläckt werden würden!” Gesammelte Aufsätze (Gotha, 1927), p. 222.Google Scholar

32. Harnack, Adolf von, Denkschnft für die Marburger Theologische Fakultdtät vom 27. September 1888, cited by Kohls, Ernst, Luther oder Erasmus, 1 (Basel, 1972),Google Scholar front matter.

33. Burckhardt, Jacob, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (New York, 1960), p. 39.Google Scholar