ong us in three different senses, and hence spring all manner of
misconceptions and errors. By dogmas are denoted: (1) The historical
doctrines of the Church. (2) The historical facts on which the Christian
religion is reputedly or actually founded. (3) Every definite exposition
of the contents of Christianity is described as dogmatic. In contrast
with this the attempt has been made in the following presentation to use
dogma only in the sense first stated. When I speak, therefore, of the
decomposition of dogma, I mean by that, neither the historical facts
which really establish the Christian religion, nor do I call in question
the necessity for the Christian and the Church to have a creed. My
criticism refers not to the general genus dogma, but to the species,
viz., the defined dogma, as it was formed on the soil of the ancient
world, and is still a power, though under modifications.

2. _History of the History of Dogma._

The history of dogma as a historical and critical discipline had its
origin in the last century through the works of Mosheim, C. W. F. Walch,
Ernesti, Lessing and Semler. Lange gave to the world in 1796 the first
attempt at a history of dogma as a special branch of theological study.
The theologians of the Early and Mediaeval Churches have only transmitted
histories of Heretics and of Literature, regarding dogma as
unchangeable.[12] This presupposition is so much a part of the nature of
Catholicism that it has been maintained till the present day. It is
therefore impossible for a Catholic to make a free, impartial and
scientific investigation of the history of dogma.[13] There have,
indeed, at almost all times before the Reformation, been critical
efforts in the domain of Christianity, especially of western
Christianity, efforts which in some cases have led to the proof of the
novelty and inadmissibility of particular dogmas. But, as a rule, these
efforts were of the nature of a polemic against the dominant Church.
They scarcely prepared the way for, far less produced a historical view
of, dogmatic tradition.[14] The progress of the sciences[15] and the
conflict with Protestantism could here, for the Catholic Church, have no
other effect than that of leading to the collecting, with great
learning, of material for the history of dogma, the establishing of the
_consensus patrum et doctorum_, the exhibition of the necessity of a
continuous explication of dogma, and the description of the history of
he