mik, 1878. Joh Delitszch, Das Lehrsystem der roem.
Kirche, 1875. New revelations, however, are rejected, and bold
assumptions leading that way are not favoured: See Schwane, above work
p. 11: "The content of revelation is not enlarged by the decisions or
teaching of the Church, nor are new revelations added in course of time
... Christian truth cannot therefore in its content be completed by the
Church, nor has she ever claimed the right of doing so, but always where
new designations or forms of dogma became necessary for the putting down
of error or the instruction of the faithful, she would always teach what
she had received in Holy scripture or in the oral tradition of the
Apostles." Recent Catholic accounts of the history of dogma are Klee,
Lehrbuch der D.G. 2 vols, 1837, (Speculative). Schwane, Dogmengesch. der
Vornicaenischen Zeit, 1862, der patrist Zeit, 1869; der Mittleren Zeit,
1882. Bach, Die D.G. des MA. 1873. There is a wealth of material for the
history of dogma in Kuhn's Dogmatik, as well as in the great
controversial writings occasioned by the celebrated work of Bellarmin;
Disputationes de controversiis Christianae fidei adversus hujus temporis
haereticos, 1581-1593. It need not be said that, in spite of their
inability to treat the history of dogma historically and critically,
much may be learned from these works, and some other striking monographs
of Roman Catholic scholars. But everything in history that is fitted to
shake the high antiquity and unanimous attestation of the Catholic
dogmas, becomes here a problem, the solution of which is demanded,
though indeed its carrying out often requires a very exceptional
intellectual subtlety.]
[Footnote 17: Historical interest in Protestantism has grown up around
the questions as to the power of the Pope, the significance of Councils,
or the Scripturalness of the doctrines set up by them, and about the
meaning of the Lord's supper, of the conception of it by the Church
Fathers; (see Oecolampadius and Melanchthon.) Protestants were too sure
that the doctrine of justification was taught in the scriptures to feel
any need of seeking proofs for it by studies in the history of dogma,
and Luther also dispensed with the testimony of history for the dogma of
the Lord's supper. The task of shewing how far and in what way Luther
and the Reformers compounded with history has not even yet been taken
up. And yet there may be found in Luther's writings surprising and
excel
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