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The Art of Church History*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

James Hastings Nichols
Affiliation:
Federated Theological Faculty, University of Chicago

Extract

Academic history in general, as is well known, straddles the conventional departments of college faculties; it is always a problem whether history should be listed among the social sciences or with the humanities. Clio is traditionally one of the arts, yet historians jealously defend their claims also to critical science. Church history likewise presents these Janus faces to the world; it is at the same time a product of religious imagination and thought and a scientific discipline. May it not be, however, that these two aspects of church history need to be maintained in a certain relation to each other, and that today they are generally imperfectly integrated?

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1951

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References

1 Walter, Nigg, Die Kirchengeschichtsschreibung. (C. H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, München 1934) p. 244.Google Scholar

2 Gerhart, Ebeling, Kirchengeschichte als Geschichte der Auslegung der Heiligen Schrift. [Tübingen, J.C.B. Mohr (P. Siebeck), 1947.]Google Scholar

3 Cyril, Richardson, “Church History Past and Present,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review (11 1949), p. 13.Google Scholar