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Mar 23, 2021 · Internet Archive. Language. English. ix pages, 1 leaf, 324 pages ; 22 cm. I. In quest of a definition -- II. What is history? -- III. Christianity a historical religion -- IV. The Christian church before Christ -- V. The church of the remnant -- VI. The body of Christ -- VII. Revelation and ideology -- VIII. The heresy of Protestantism -- IX.
and against Christianity in many of the most important areas. Of course anyone who wants to know what Christianity is about should also read at least one of the Gospels. Since Christianity is about following Jesus, there’s really no substitute for reading his life and teachings. If you want to read just one Gospel, I’m inclined to suggest Luke.
Basics of Christianity If you recently put your faith in Jesus Christ, Basics of Christianity is a great place for you to learn more about some important topics. If you haven’t taken that step but want to learn more about what Christians believe in your own search for truth, start here! This section covers topics like: What is sin,
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• Christianity is about Christ – a title that means “God’s only chosen King”. • Christianity is the “gospel” – the good news – about Jesus Christ. • When Jesus was baptized, God the Father announced, “You are my Son”. • God has revealed himself in human history through Jesus Christ.
- Adolf Harnack
- AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION
- TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
- LECTURE I
- LECTURE II
- LECTURE III
- LECTURE IV
- LECTURE V
- (1) The Gospel and the world, or the question of asceticism.
- (2) The Gospel and the poor, or the social question.
- LECTURE VI
- (3) The Gospel and the law, or the question of public order.
- LECTURE VII
- (4) The Gospel and work, or the question of civilisation.
- (5) The Gospel and the Son of God, or the Christological question.
- LECTURE VIII
- (6) The Gospel and doctrine, or the question of creed.
- LECTURE IX
- THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE
- LECTURE X
- LECTURE XI
- THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION IN ITS DEVELOPMENT INTO CATHOLICISM
- LECTURE XII
- religious power.
- THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION IN GREEK CATHOLICISM
- LECTURE XIII
- THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION IN ROMAN CATHOLICISM
- LECTURE XV
- THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION IN PROTESTANTISM
- LECTURE XVI
Rector of, and Professor of Church History in, the University, and Member of the Royal Prussian Academy, Berlin
To meet the wishes of my English friends I have assented to the publication of these Lectures in English as well as in German, and as my esteemed friend Mr. Bailey Saunders was so self-denying and obliging as to undertake the translation of them, I was sure of their being in the best hands. Whether there is as great a need in England as there is in...
The following Lectures were delivered extempore to a class of some six hundred students drawn from all the Faculties in the University of Berlin. An enthusiastic listener took them down in shorthand, and at the close surprised Professor Harnack with a complete report of what he had said. A few alterations sufficed to transform the Lectures into a b...
THE great English philosopher, John Stuart Mill, has somewhere observed that mankind cannot be too often reminded that there was once a man of the name of Socrates. That is true; but still more important is it to remind mankind again and again that a man of the name of Jesus Christ once stood in their midst. The fact, of course, has been brought ho...
OUR first section deals with the main features of the message delivered by Jesus Christ. They include the form in which he delivered what he had to say. We shall see how essential a part of his character is here exhibited, for “he spoke as one having authority and not as the Scribes.” But before describing these features I feel it my duty to tell y...
IN the previous lecture we spoke of our evangelists and of their silence on the subject of Jesus’ early development. We described in brief the mode and character of his teaching. We saw that he spoke like a prophet, and yet not like a prophet. His words breathe peace, joy and certainty. He urges the necessity of struggle and decision—“where your tr...
WE last spoke of Jesus’ message in so far as it proclaimed the kingdom of God and its coining. We saw that it runs through all the forms in which the prophecy of the day of judgment is expressed in the Old Testament, up to the idea of an inward coming of the kingdom then beginning. Finally we tried to show why the latter idea is to be regarded as t...
AT the close of the last lecture I referred to the Beatitudes, and mentioned that they exhibit Jesus’ religion in a particularly impressive way. I desire to remind you of another passage which shows that Jesus recognised the practical proof of religion to consist in the exercise of neighbourly love and mercy. In one of his last discourses he spoke ...
There is a widespread opinion—it is dominant in the Catholic churches and many Protestants share it nowadays—that, in the last resort and in the most important things which it enjoins, the Gospel is a strictly world-shunning and ascetic creed. Some people proclaim this piece of intelligence with sympathy and admiration; nay, they magnify it into th...
The bearings of the Gospel in regard to the social question form the second point which we proposed to consider. It is closely akin to the first. Here also we encounter different views prevalent at the present moment, or, to be more exact, two views, which are mutually op-posed. We are told, on the one hand, that the Gospel was in the main a great ...
101 AT the close of the last lecture I referred to the problem presented by “the poor” in the Gospel. As a rule, the poor of whom Jesus was thinking were also those whose hearts are open towards God, and hence what is said of them cannot be applied without further cere-mony to the poor generally. In considering the social question we must, therefor...
The problem dealing with the relation of the Gospel to law embraces two leading ques-tions: (I) the relation of the Gospel to constituted authority; (2) the relation of the Gospel to legal ordinances generally, in so far as they possess a wider range than is covered by the conception “constituted authority.” It is not easy to mistake the answer to ...
WE were occupied in the last lecture with the relation of the Gospel to law and legal ordinance. We saw that Jesus was convinced that God does, and will do, justice. We saw, further, that he demanded of his disciples that they should be able to renounce their rights. In giving expression to this demand, far from having all the circumstances of his ...
The points which we shall have to consider here are essentially the same as those which we emphasised in regard to the question just discussed; and we shall therefore be able to proceed more concisely. Jesus’ teaching has been felt again and again, but above all in our own day, to exhibit no interest in any systematic work or calling, and no apprec...
We now pass from the sphere of questions of which we have been treating hitherto. The four previous questions are all intimately connected with one another. Failure to answer them rightly always proceeds from not rating the Gospel high enough; from somehow or other dragging it down to the level of mundane questions and entangling it in them. Or, to...
ALTHOUGH the Messianic doctrines prevalent in the Jewish nation in Jesus’ day were not a positive “dogma,” and had no connexion with the legal precepts which were so rigidly cultivated, they formed an essential element of the hopes, religious and political, which the nation entertained for the future. They were of no very definite character, except...
We need not dwell long on this question, as on the essential points—everything that it is necessary to say has already been said in the course of our previous observations. The Gospel is no theoretical system of doctrine or philosophy of the universe; it is doctrine only in so far as it proclaims the reality of God the Father. It is a glad message ...
THE task before us in the second half of these lectures is to exhibit the history of the Christian religion in its leading phases, and to examine its development in the apostolic age, in Catholicism, and in Protestantism.
The inner circle of the disciples, the band of twelve whom Jesus had gathered around him, formed itself into a community. He himself founded no community in the sense of an organised union for divine worship—he was only the teacher and the disciples were the pupils; but the fact that the band of pupils at once underwent this transformation became t...
IT was as their Lord that the primitive community of Christians believed in Jesus. They thus expressed their absolute devotion to, and confidence in, him as the Prince of Life. As every individual Christian stood in an immediate relation to God through the Spirit, priests and mediations were no longer wanted. Finally, these “holy” people were drawn...
THE apostolic age now lies behind us. We have seen that in the course of it the Gospel was detached from the mother soil of Judaism and placed upon the broad field of the Graeco-Roman Empire. The apostle Paul was the chief agent in accomplishing this work, and in thereby giving Christianity its place in the history of the world. The new connexion w...
The Gospel did not come into the world as a statutory religion, and therefore none of the forms in which it assumed intellectual and social expression—not even the earliest can be regarded as possessing a classical and permanent character. The historian must always keep this guiding idea before him when he undertakes to trace the course of the Chri...
NO one can compare the internal state of Christendom at the beginning of the third century with the state in which it found itself a hundred and twenty years earlier without being moved by conflicting views and sentiments. Admiration for the vigorous achievement presented in the creation of the Catholic Church, and for the energy with which it exte...
228 Originally only a developed form of that community of brothers which furnished place and manner for God’s common worship and a mysterious shadow of the heavenly Church, it now became, as an institution, an indispensable factor in religion. People were taught that in this institution Christ’s Spirit had deposited everything that the individual m...
I must invite you to descend several centuries with me and to look at the Greek Church as it is today, and as it has been preserved, essentially unaltered, for more than a thousand years. Between the third and the nineteenth century the history of the Church of the East nowhere presents any deep gulf. Hence we may take up our position in the presen...
SO far we have established the fact that Greek Catholicism is characterised as a religion by two elements: by traditionalism and by intellectualism. According to traditionalism, the reverent preservation of the received inheritance, and the defence of it against all innovation, is not only an important duty, but is itself the practical proof of rel...
302 THE question has often been raised whether, and to what extent, the Reformation was a work of the German spirit. I cannot here go into this complicated problem. But this much seems to me to be certain, that while we cannot, indeed, connect Luther’s momentous reli-gious experiences with-his nationality, the results positive as well as negative w...
302 THE question has often been raised whether, and to what extent, the Reformation was a work of the German spirit. I cannot here go into this complicated problem. But this much seems to me to be certain, that while we cannot, indeed, connect Luther’s momentous reli-gious experiences with-his nationality, the results positive as well as negative w...
302 THE question has often been raised whether, and to what extent, the Reformation was a work of the German spirit. I cannot here go into this complicated problem. But this much seems to me to be certain, that while we cannot, indeed, connect Luther’s momentous reli-gious experiences with-his nationality, the results positive as well as negative w...
302 THE question has often been raised whether, and to what extent, the Reformation was a work of the German spirit. I cannot here go into this complicated problem. But this much seems to me to be certain, that while we cannot, indeed, connect Luther’s momentous reli-gious experiences with-his nationality, the results positive as well as negative w...
WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? The Christian’s Standing, Object, and Hope We believe that the third chapter of Philippians gives us the model of a true Christian. We have, first, the Christian’s standing; secondly, the Christian’s object; and thirdly, the Christian’s hope. We are not only told what the Christian’s standing is, but also what it ...
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Christianity is the world’s largest religious tradition with around 2.4 billion followers, around 30% of the world’s population in 2020. It is based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth who lived in the Middle East over 2000 years ago.
