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Dr. Susan Mobley
November 21, 2014
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From Ancient to Modern
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Assurnasirpal, King of Assyria, spoke:
o “600 of their warriors I put to the sword; 3,000 captives I
burned with fire; I did not leave a single one of them
alive to serve as a hostage . . . . Their governor I flayed
and his skin I spread upon the wall of the city; the city I
destroyed, I devastated, I burned with fire.”
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The Jews and History
o Chosen People of God
o The Covenant with God
o Hebrew historical writing: purpose and meaning
o History as linear and narrative
 Greeks
and the
invention of history
 The
o Focused on military
o Histor—to examine and
evaluate accuracy of
facts through inquiry
o Herodotus, the “father
of history” (484-425
B.C.)
•
•
•
•
Facts
Cause and effect
Purpose of history
History as Cyclical
Romans
o
o
o
o
and political aspects,
and biography
Narrative
Less concern for
objectivity
Greater emphasis upon
morality
Exempla
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Christian emphasis
upon historicity to
establish authority
o Old Testament as
anticipation and
preparation for Christ
o New Testament as the
fulfillment of prophecies
through Christ
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Universal history
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Augustine’s City of God
o History as linear, with a
clear beginning, middle
and end
o Jesus Christ’s life, death
and resurrection as central
events in the story
o “The concluding triumph
of the city of God over the
city of man would result
in the . . . . transcendence
of believers beyond
history into the realm of
the eternal.”
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Annals and Chronicles of the Middle Ages
o Impact of Augustine
o Salvation history, but . . . .
o History as linear and narrative
o No attempt to draw connections between cause and
effect
o Reliance upon authorities rather than research
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The Renaissance view of history
o Tripartite division
o Return to Classical models within a Christian
framework
o History as linear, but as exempla
o Methodology
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The Reformation
o Influences: Augustine and the Renaissance
o History as polemic
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The Enlightenment
o Emphasis on reason and secularism
o Rejection of superstition and tradition
o Revolt against institutional religion and religion itself
o Expansion of historical inquiry
o Fundamental flaw: polemical and anti-historical
o Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
• “Since the first discovery of the arts, war, commerce, and
religious zeal have diffused among the savages of the Old and
New World these inestimable gifts: they have been successively
propagated; they can never be lost. We may therefore acquiesce
in the pleasing conclusion that every age of the world has
increased and still increases the real wealth, the happiness, the
knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the human race.”
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Progressive views of humanity and historical process
o Rise of modern science
o Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution
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History under assault
o Accusation that history as a discipline had failed in the
development of verifiable methods
o “If historians could not express knowledge in
approximate conformance with the mathematical ideal,
then they had either indulged in a ‘harmless but
irrelevant enjoyment of confused perceptions’ or, much
worse, embarked upon ‘a dangerous error in the path of
truth.’”
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Historismus (historicism)
o “To comprehend the past, scholars had to enter into the mental
universe of past actors empathetically and reconstruct their
picture of reality.”
o Historians “turned away from ‘interpretation’ to the rigorous
examination of the factual event, just as it occurred.”
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Leopold von Ranke
o History was not to “judge the past” in order to “instruct” the
present “for the benefit of future years.” Historians should tell
the story “wie es eigentlich gewesen.”
o Transformation of history into a modern academic discipline,
university based, archive bound and professional
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“Of all the factors which have operated to the
disadvantage of religion and the undermining of the
religious sense in recent centuries, the most
damaging has been the notion of an absentee God
who might be supposed to have created the
universe in the first place, but who is then assumed
to have left it to run as a piece of clockwork, so that
he is outside our lives, outside history itself, unable
to affect the courses of things and hidden away from
use by an impenetrable screen.”
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Prevalent belief “that the historical growth of freedom,
whether conceived as propelled by natural necessity or by
rational development, will gradually change the human
situation, making man less and less a creature and more
and more a master of the historical process.”
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“The usual basis for this hope is the belief that there is no
essential difference between the stuff of history and the
stuff of nature and therefore no real distinction between
the application of the ‘scientific method’ to nature and to
history.”
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So, the fulfillment of history will take place within history
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History “is a true story about the human past.”
--Paul Conkin
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The truth of history is gleaned from the collection
and evaluation of historical facts.
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Sort of . . . . .
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“Left to themselves, the facts do not speak; left to
themselves they do not exist, not really, since for all
practical purposes there is no fact until some one
affirms it.”
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“Since history is not part of the external material
world, but an imaginative reconstruction of
vanished events, its form and substance are
inseparable . . . It is thus not the undiscriminated
fact, but the perceiving mind of the historian that
speaks.”
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“If history could be told in all its complexity and
detail it would provide us with something as chaotic
and baffling as life itself; but because it can be
condensed there is nothing that cannot be made to
seem simple, and the chaos acquires form by virtue
of what we choose to omit.”
—Herbert Butterfield
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“Historians must expose themselves to chaos while
retaining a basic faith in order and meaning.”
--Lewis Spitz
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“The most obvious definition of ‘history’ is that it is a
record or memory of past events. More profoundly
considered it is a dimension of existence in which
present realities can be rightly interpreted only through
the memory of past events . . . . The memory of how
things came to be prevents the present reality from
appearing as an event of pure natural necessity.”
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Memory is “the fulcrum of freedom for man in history.
That is why the study of history is an emancipating force
in human life.”
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“There are two histories: the actual series of events
that once occurred; and the ideal series that we affirm
and hold in memory. The first is absolute and
unchanged—it was what it was whatever we do or
say about it; the second is relative, always changing
in response to the increase or refinement of
knowledge.”
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Selective Historical Memory
o Example: The Declaration of Independence
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Construction of events of the past
o Collection and selection of facts
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Imposition of structure on disorder
o Organization of the facts
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Meaning of the past is shaped by the present
o Interpretation of the facts
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Do Christian historians work differently than nonChristian historians?
o Yes and No
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Does history have a different meaning for Christians
than for non-Christians?
o Yes and No
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“The drama of history is played upon the stage of time.
All historical actions take place against the background
of an inexorable forward movement from past to future.
This flux of temporal events is a mystery beyond and
behind the mystery and the meaning of history. . . . For
time is both the stage and the stuff of history.”
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“Christian faith finds neither time nor history selfexplanatory. The mystery of divine Providence gives
meaning to history and the mystery of creation gives
meaning to time.”
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“The Christian Gospel as the final answer to the
problems of both individual life and man’s total history
is not proved to be true by rational analysis. Its
acceptance is an achievement of faith, being an
apprehension of truth beyond the limits of reason.”
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“The historical documents collected in the Bible provide
the record of God’s acting in history, and it is in the
context of those acts, centering in the death and
resurrection of Christ, that we must view ourselves and
our world. The prominence of historical events as the
basis of our faith suggests that in the Christian worldview the past has profound significance. . . . The
Christian must view himself as participating in an ongoing active relationship between God and man in
which the revelation of God’s acts and will in the past
provides continuing norms for creative responses to the
present.”
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“History is of major importance in alerting us to the
transitory character of many of the values of our own
age and culture. Rather than unknowingly allowing our
values to be conformed to passing contemporary
standards, we can strive to evaluate our current cultural
norms intelligently and to apply to them the
transforming values of Christ.”
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“The basic reason why we who are Christians should
teach and learn history is so that we may better
understand ourselves and our fellow men in relation to
our own culture and to the world. Since the Christian’s
task is to live in this world and to witness to the love of
God as manifested in Christ, it is essential for us to
understand ourselves and the world as well as we
possibly can. Love is the Christian’s central obligation,
and understanding is an essential ingredient in love. If
we are going to love others, it seems evident that we
should try our best to understand them.”
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“Christianity embodies the whole of history in its universe of
meaning because it is a religion of revelation which knows by
faith of some events in history, in which the transcendent source
and end of the whole panorama of history is disclosed. Christian
faith fully appreciates the threat of meaninglessness which comes
into history by the corruption of human freedom. But it does not
succumb to the despairing conclusion that history is merely a
chaos of competing forces. It has discerned that the divine power
which is sovereign over history also has a resource of mercy and
love which overcomes the rebellion of human sin, without
negating the distinctions between good and evil . . . The
revelations of God in history, are, in fact, according to the biblical
faith, evidences of a divine grace which both searches out the evil
character of human sin and overcomes it.”
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“If, therefore, the New Testament faith ends in the
pinnacle of the hope of the resurrection this is also the
final expression of a faith which sees no hope that man
may overcome or escape the contingent character of his
existence; yet it is not without hope, for it is persuaded
that a divine power and love have been disclosed in
Christ, which will complete what man can not complete;
and which will overcome the evil introduced into human
life and history by man’s abortive effort to complete his
life by his own wisdom and power.”
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“The significance of memory as one aspect of what
Christian thought has defined as the ‘image of God’ in
man was first given due appreciation in western thought
by Augustine, who also first elaborated the sense of
history, derived from Biblical thought. . . . Memory
represents man’s capacity to rise above, even while he is
within, the temporal flux.”
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“History is not a simple story. The historian’s task is
hardly begun when he writes, ‘This happened.’ . . . .
There are no bare facts: they come clothed in
interpretation, and each writing of history gives them
new garb. . . . Only in faith can history be construed.”
“Faith in Christ is the clue to the meaning of history.”
“But faith in Christ as the revelatory focus of history is
never an easy faith, and the alienation of our time is not
its major foe. The main trouble is that history itself
seems to contradict it; that, indeed, history seems to
contradict any pattern which our minds propose.”
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“History is Dialogue, not between God and the Devil . . . . but
between God and man. The teaching of history is dull because
we have turned history into a monologue: man talking to
himself. A monologue is always dull after the first few minutes.
Soon it makes no sense. Then history becomes a recitation of
successive dynasties, a deadly memorizing of kings and dates
and battles. Humanist history has no depth. It is a flatland of
man’s doings . . . .”
“History is the Dialogue between God and man in the language
of event, and of the Event.”
“History begins, continues, and ends in Mystery.”
“It is equally appalling that we should think that we can print
our patterns on history, our pathetic cycles, and our equally
pathetic ‘progress’—staircases, going where? Our patterns, like
ourselves, are contingent and doomed to die.”
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“Unlike the firefly, history is not self-illuminating. The
problem of the meaning of history is, therefore, not primarily
a historical problem. Because the question is part of the
problem of the meaning of human existence as such . . . an
inquiry into the nature and destiny of history is necessarily an
. . . intensely personal investigation.”
“God’s disclosure of His will for human life is twofold: it
comes as law and as gospel, as judgment and as redemption.”
“History is conceived of as Law whenever its development
demonstrates the inability of men and civilizations to redeem
themselves or to live up to the ideals and goals that they set
for themselves.”
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“History is corrupted and in need of redemption . . . . The
Law is not God’s last word to men . . . His final selfdisclosure is the Gospel of salvation. This salvation was
historically wrought and can be historically realized.”
“The Gospel is also the denunciation and renunciation of
all human efforts to save history and of all trust in human
ability to redeem historical process.”
“History comes as Law whenever its movement
demonstrates that man cannot achieve his own salvation.
But it comes as Gospel when, in the Cross of Christ, it
brings the message of God’s favor and abiding love. This is
the ultimate meaning of history and the last, best hope of
earth.”
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Butterfield, Herbert. “The Art of the Historian”(chapter 5) in The Whig Interpretation of
History. Available in electronic format:
http://www.eliohs.unifi.it/testi/900/butterfield/chap_5.html. Accessed 11-24-14.
Butterfield, Herbert. Writings on Christianity and History. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1979.
Buttrick, George Arthur. Christ and History. New York: Abingdon Press, 1963.
Cullen, Jim. Essaying the Past: How to Read, Write, and Think about History. Malden,
MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2009.
Gibbon, Edward. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. As excerpted in Primary Source
Readings for HIST 103 Civilization and Worldviews—History, ed. John Horgan and Susan
Mobley. Mequon: Concordia University Wisconsin, 2007, 334-347.
Gilderhus, Mark T. History and Historians: A Historiographical Introduction, 6th ed.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007.
Niebuhr, Reinhold. Faith and History: A Comparison of Christian and Modern Views of
History. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949.
Pelikan, Jaroslav J. “History as Law and Gospel—I.” Cresset 4 (1949): 12-17.
Pelikan, Jaroslav J. “History as Law and Gospel—II.” Cresset 5 (1949): 19-23.
Spitz, Lewis W. “The Historian and the Ancient of Days.” Reprinted in The
Reformation: Education and History, 148-161. Variorum, 1997.