n and
development is a work of the Greek spirit on the soil of the Gospel,"
has frequently been distorted by my critics, as they have suppressed the
words "on the soil of the Gospel." But these words are decisive. The
foolishness of identifying dogma and Greek philosophy never entered my
mind; on the contrary, the peculiarity of ecclesiastical dogma seemed to
me to lie in the very fact that, on the one hand, it gave expression to
Christian Monotheism and the central significance of the person of
Christ, and, on the other hand, comprehended this religious faith and
the historical knowledge connected with it in a philosophic system. I
have given quite as little ground for the accusation that I look upon
the whole development of the history of dogma as a pathological process
within the history of the Gospel. I do not even look upon the history of
the origin of the Papacy as such a process, not to speak of the history
of dogma. But the perception that "everything must happen as it has
happened" does not absolve the historian from the task of ascertaining
the powers which have formed the history, and distinguishing between
original and later, permanent and transitory, nor from the duty of
stating his own opinion.

2. Sabatier has published a thoughtful treatise on "Christian Dogma: its
Nature and its Development." I agree with the author in this, that in
dogma--rightly understood--two elements are to be distinguished, the
religious proceeding from the experience of the individual or from the
religious spirit of the Church, and the intellectual or theoretic. But I
regard as false the statement which he makes, that the intellectual
element in dogma is only the symbolical expression of religious
experience. The intellectual element is itself again to be
differentiated. On the one hand, it certainly is the attempt to give
expression to religious feeling, and so far is symbolical; but, on the
other hand, within the Christian religion it belongs to the essence of
the thing itself, inasmuch as this not only awakens feeling, but has a
quite definite content which determines and should determine the
feeling. In this sense Christianity without dogma, that is, without a
clear expression of its content, is inconceivable. But that does not
justify the unchangeable permanent significance of that dogma which has
once been formed under definite historical conditions.

3. The word "dogmas" (Christian dogmas) is, if I see correctly, used
am