CHURCH HISTORY or ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. The history of the Christian religion and church forms one of the most important parts of the general history of man kind, and is intimately connected not only with the political history of the world, but with the history of philosophy, of literature, and of civilization. The sources and author ities are extremely various, and their due appreciation often requires as much judgment as their exploration requires toil. Church history is either general—embracing a view of the affairs of the church in the whole world from the beginning to the present day— or particular, relating to some partiular country, or time, or portion of the church. By some authors, it has been treated chiefly with regard to the outward affairs of the church; and by others, with reference to doctrine, morals, and the evidences of spiritual life; whilst others still have devoted their attention chiefly to the forms of worship, the con stitution of the church, and other things generally comprehended under the name of ecclesiastical antiquities. All these, of course, have important relations to each other. The earliest writers of church history were in general mere chroniclers, following the order of time; in the great work of the Magdeburg eenturiators, a method was adopted, of which there had been previous examples, and which afterwards became frequent, of treating each century separately, the centuries being subdivided according to convenience of subjects; but arrangements less mechanical and arbitrary have been adopted by the most eminent modern authors. With much diversity on minor points, there is a gen eral agreement in dividing the whole history of the church into three great periods: the first, from our Saviour to the time of Constantine: the second. from that time to the reformation; and the third, from the reformation to the present day.
The earliest facts of C. H. are to be learned only from the New Testament, after which, however, the epistles and other writings of the apostolic and other primitive fathers afford sources of information, Unfortunately very scanty; liegesippus, who wrote about the middle of the 2d c., has transmitted to us some very imperfect memo rials of these early times; but the first proper ecclesiastical history is that of Eusebius of CHsarea (324). This work was continued to the 5th c. by Socrates Scholasticus, Hermias Sozomenus, and Theodoret. Similar compilations were executed by Lactantius, Epiphanius, Hieronymus, Theodoret of Cyrus, Philostorgius, and Zosimus. In the 6th c., the chief ecclesiastical historians are—Theodorus Lector, Evagrius, and Nicephorus Callistius; in the 8th, the venerable Bede and Paul Warnefried; in the 9th, Theophanes Confessor, Claudius of Turin, Haymo of Halberstadt, Scotus Erigena, and Hinkmar of Rheims; in the 12th and 13th, Photius, Simeon Metaphrastes, l'heophy lact, Matthew Paris, Albert of Strasburg, and Ptolemy of Lucca; in the 15th, Lauren tius Valla is the most conspicuous name. Protestant writers were the first to treat C.
H. in a critical and scientific manner. This was natural, for their position as apparent schismatics compelled them to vindicate historically the changes which they had wrought in the character of the church. Hence their writings were of an apologetic and polemical cast. The first work of this kind was the Magdeburg Centuries (q.v.), published by Matthias Flacius. Special histories of the reformation were composed by Sleidan and Seckendorf. In the 17th c., Calixtus distinguished himself in this depart ment, and after him Thom. Illig, Adam Rechenberg, and Thomasius. The new life that awoke in Germany towards the middle of the 18th c., produced a multitude of church historians, of whom we can only afford to mention Arnold, C. M. Pfaff, Mosheirn, Semler, and J. Matth. SchrSckh; while in still more recent times, Marheineke, Danz, Neander, Gieseler, and Hagenbach have achieved the highest distinction in the same sphere of labor. But others besides the Lutheran divines have rendered valuable services to church history. The reformed church boasts the eminent names of Du Moulin, Joh. Dallaus, Blondel, Hottinger, Spanheim, Turretin, Vcnema, Jablonski, and recently, D'Aubigne; while among Englishmen, Usher, Pearson, Bingham, Lard ner, and recently, Milman and Maurice, have won a distinguished place. Scotland has few names, the chief being Calderwood, Wodrow, M'Crie, and recently Cunningham. In the Roman Catholic church, since the period of the reformation, ecclesiastical histo rians have rarely manifested a dispassionate and philosophic spirit. They have appeared mainly in the character. of defenders of the papacy. The greatest names in C. H. in Catholic France are Tillemont, Bossuet, Bayle, Du Pin, Thomassin, and Fleury. Among the Italians may he mentioned Orsi, Saccharelli, Pallavicini, Guic ciardini, and Muratori; and among the Roman Catholics of Germany, Dannenmayr, count Stolberg, Ritter, Hortig, Hollinger, etc.
For the benefit of the English reader, it may be stated that the extensive, profound, and philosophic work of Dr. Augustus Neander has been translated from the original German into English, and is published in 10 vols. by Bohn.