theologians, unconcerned about the actual conditions and frequently following a hysteron-proteron. But this is a view of history which should in justice be left to the Catholic Church, which indeed cannot dispense with it. The critical history of dogma has, on the contrary, to shew above all how an ecclesiastical theology has arisen; for it can only give account of the origin of dogma in connection with this main question. The horizon must be taken here as wide as possible; for the question as to the origin of theology can only be answered by surveying all the relations into which the Christian religion has entered in naturalising itself in the world and subduing it. When ecclesiastical dogma has once been created and recognised as an immediate expression of the Christian religion, the history of dogma has only to take the history of theology into account so far as it has been active in the formation of dogma. Yet it must always keep in view the peculiar claim of dogma to be a criterion and not a product of theology. But it will also be able to shew how, partly by means of theology and partly by other means--for dogma is also dependent on ritual, constitution, and the practical ideals of life, as well as on the letter, whether of Scripture, or of tradition no longer understood--dogma in its development and re-expression has continually changed, according to the conditions under which the Church was placed. If dogma is originally the formulation of Christian faith as Greek culture understood it and justified it to itself, then dogma has never indeed lost this character, though it has been radically modified in later times. It is quite as important to keep in view the tenacity of dogma as its changes, and in this respect the Protestant way of writing history, which, here as elsewhere in the history of the Church, is more disposed to attend to differences than to what is permanent, has much to learn from the Catholic. But as the Protestant historian, as far possible, judges of the progress of development in so far as it agrees with the Gospel in its documentary form, he is still able to shew, with all deference to that tenacity, that dogma has been so modified and used to the best advantage by Augustine and Luther, that its Christian character has in many respects gained, though in other respects it has become further and further alienated from that character. In proportion as the traditional system of dogmas lost its stringency it became richer. In proportion as it was stripped by Augustine and Luther of its apologetic philosophic tendency, it was more and more filled with Biblical ideas, though, on the other hand, it became more full of contradictions and less impressive.