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Quomodo historia conscribenda sit*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Extract

Of those who in the 19th Century applied the historical method to the study of the New Testament and the early church none were more important than Ferdinand Christian Baur and Joseph Barber Lightfoot. My intention in this paper is to compare them and the outstanding contributions they made to our knowledge of the period with which they dealt. I do this in the hope of recalling for our profit some of the history of New Testament study and of making the point that New Testament study is, or ought to be, a field for international cooperation rather than international rivalry. At first I hoped that my method, of considering what each of these great men made of a particularly obscure piece of New Testament history, might lead not only to deeper understanding of how historians work but also to a fresh consideration and evaluation of the piece in question; it has proved impossible to go so far within the space available. My underlying concern is, however, with the problem of early Christian history. My title I borrow from the Latin version of a tract by Lucian, Πως δείἱστορίαν συγγρ⋯φειν. Lucian will, to my regret, occupy a smaller part of the paper than I originally intended, but having borrowed the title I cannot omit him altogether.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

Notes

[1] Harris, Horton, The Tübingen School (1975), p. 259.Google Scholar

[2] Baur, F. C., Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi (1845), p. 13;Google Scholar (2nd edition, ed. by E. Zeller, 1866), p. 17.

[3] Paulus, p. 213; 2nd ed., p. 243.Google Scholar

[4] Paulus, p. 10Google Scholar; 2nd ed., p. 13.

[5] Paulus, p. 105Google Scholar; 2nd ed., p. 120.

[6] Paulus, p. 121Google Scholar; 2nd ed., p. 138.

[7] Pp. 311 f.

[8] Paulus, p. 125Google Scholar; 2nd ed., pp. 142 f.

[9] Paulus, p. 127Google Scholar; 2nd ed., p. 145.

[10] Paulus, p. 129Google Scholar; 2nd ed., p. 147.

[11] Paulus, p. 134Google Scholar; 2nd ed., p. 153.

[12] Gasque, W., A History of the Criticism of the Acts of the Apostles, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Biblischen Exegese 17 (1975), p. 118.Google Scholar

[13] Robinson, J. A. in Lightfoot of Durham, ed. Eden, G. R. and Macdonald, F. C. (1932), p. 128.Google Scholar

[14] Chadwick, W. O., The Victorian Church (1966–1970), 2. 68.Google Scholar

[15] Essays and Reviews (1860), p. 377.Google Scholar

[16] The Epistles of St Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians and Romans (3rd edition, ed. by Campbell, Lewis, 1894), 1. 417, 70–76.Google Scholar

[17] 1. 29–32, 367–381.

[18] Lux Mundi, ed. Gore, C. (1890).Google Scholar

[19] Op. cit., p. 361.

[20] Originally in Tübinger Zeitschrift für Theologie, 1838, Heft 3, pp. 1185Google Scholar; now in Baur, F. C., Ausgewählte Werke in Einzelausgaben, ed. Scholder, K., 1 (1963), 321505.Google Scholar

[21] Pointed out to me by J. W. Rogerson and discussed by him in forthcoming essays.

[22] Prothero, R. E., The Life and Correspondence of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1893), 1. 325.Google Scholar

[23] The Works of T. H. Green, ed. Nettleship, R. L., Vol. 3 (2nd edition, 1889), p. xci.Google Scholar

[24] Op. cit., pp. 186–276

[25] Cf. W. O. Chadwick, op. cit., 2. 69.

[26] Lightfoot made good use of this work.

[27] Lake, K., The Earlier Epistles of St Paul (1911), p. 116, n. 3Google Scholar. The text is sometimes - rather misleadingly - quoted without this note.

[28] Lightfoot of Durham (see note 13), p. 119.Google Scholar

[29] In the dissertation ‘St Paul and the Three’ in the Commentary on Galatians (first edition, 1865) there is a general reference to Baur's Paulus (p. 295), and brief references on pp. 327, 333, 341, 347, 353; most of these have to do with patristic rather than New Testament matters. In the dissertation on ‘The Christian Ministry’ in the Commentary on Philippians (first edition, 1868) there are references on pp. 201 and 233 (where it is allowed that, on the point in question, Baur may be partly right).

[30] The Apostolic Fathers, Part I, S. Clement of Rome (2nd edition, 1890), 1. 357 f.Google Scholar

[31] First edition, 1874. The author was W. R. Cassels.

[32] The essays were collected in the volume Essays on the Work entitled Supernatural Religion (1889)Google Scholar. There are references to Baur on pp. 26, 61, 64, 70.

[33] Kümmel, W. G., Das Neue Testament im 20. Jahrhundert, Stuttgarter Bibelstudien 50 (1970), p. 73.Google Scholar

[34] Fuller, R. H., The New Testament in Current Study (1962), p. 65Google Scholar. I made, independently, a somewhat similar observation in Durham University Journal 64 (1972), p. 203.Google Scholar

[35] See note 29; the date is 1865.

[36] Galatians, p. 311.

[37] Lightfoot refers to Gal. 2. 9.

[38] Lightfoot refers to Ephesians, which he takes to be a circular letter.

[39] The volume was published in 1893; the article was written long before.

[40] The date 1877 is written on the manuscript. The lectures contain marginal supplements and were evidently delivered more than once.

[41] The word is illegible; it could be turn, and this or some synonym is certainly intended.

[42] Hare left his German library of some 3000 volumes to Trinity College, Cambridge; Hort, A. F., Life and Letters of F. J. A. Hort (1896), 1. 308.Google Scholar

[43] Guesses at Truth by Two Brothers (J. C., and Hare, A.), 1 (4th edition, 1851), 274–7.Google Scholar

[44] Op. cit., pp. 277 f.

[45] The authors have referred to Ritter and Hegel.

[46] Op. cit., 2 (3rd edition, 1855), 249 f.

[47] Op. cit., p. 255.

[48] F. C. Baur on the Writing of Church History, ed. and tr. Hodgson, P. C. (1968), pp. 1217.Google Scholar

[49] The Leaves of the Tree (1911), p. 208.Google Scholar

[50] Essays (note 32), p. 180.Google Scholar

[51] I emphasized Lightfoot's integrity in D.U.J. (note 34), p. 195.

[52] Essays (note 32), pp. viii f.

[53] One should refer also to the great article on Eusebius, in Smith, W. M. and Wace, H., Dictionary of Christian Biography 2 (1880), 308348.Google Scholar

[54] Barth, K., Church Dogmatics 1. 2 (E.T., 1956), 728 f.Google Scholar

[55] In the essays referred to in note 21.

[56] Cf. Galatians, p. 373, quoted on p. 312. See the whole context. ‘Doubtful allusions’ is scarcely fair to the position against which Lightfoot is arguing.

[57] Essays (note 32), p. 26.

[58] Abgenöthigte Erklärung gegen einen Artikel der evangelischen Kirchenzeitung, herausgegeben von D. E. W. Hengstenberg, originally in Tübinger Zeitschriftfür Theologie, 1836, Heft 3, p. 219; now in Ausgewählte Werke (note 20), 1. 307.

[59] Ausgewählte Werke (note 20), 1. XIX. Käsemann goes on to say that ‘historisch-kritisch’ must in the end mean ‘historisch-spekulativ’. It may be that there is also some difference in usage between ‘spekulativ’ and ‘speculative’.