From: The Dial, Vol. II No. IV (April 1842)
Author:
Published: E. P. Peabody 1842 Boston
Institutes of Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern. By JOHN LAURENCE VON MOSHEIM, D.D., Chancellor of the University of Göttingen. A new and literal translation from the original Latin, with copious additional notes, original and selected, by James Murdock, D.D; edited, with additions, by Henry Soames, M.A., Rector of Stapleford Tawney, with Thoyden Mount, Essex. London: 1841. 4 vols. 8vo.
Here we have the able translation of Mosheim by our learned and laborious countryman, endorsed by an English scholar, enriched with new additions, and printed in the most elegant style of the times. We ought also to add, that Mr. Soames has dedicated his offspring to “Sir Edward Bowyer Smyth, of Hill Hall, Essex, Baronet.” Gentle reader, if thou knowest not Sir Edward, we will add for thy edification the remaining dedicatory words;—“Whose religious habits, anxiety for the spiritual welfare of all within his influence, due sense of obligation as an ecclesiastical patron, and patrician liberality, cast a lustre upon an ancient family, and display the value of an hereditary aristocracy, this volume,” & c., & c.
After the valuable labors of Dr. Murdock, the reader might ask, What need of a new editor? The answer is plain. In a field so vast as that of ecclesiastical history, so filled with inquiring spirits, some new treasure is yearly brought to light; some old forgotten jewel or medal, rough with inscriptions, is now and then turned up by the trenchant spade of a scholar or antiquary. Accordingly, if a score of Dr. Murdocks had worked a score of years upon the volume, there would still be work for new editors. The history of local churches is never complete. Besides, the world daily grows older, and new towers and chapels are added to the church, or some turret topples over with slow decay, and falls to the ground. The separation of what is old, and the silent accretion of the new, always affords work for the historian.
Mr. Soames has aimed not only to supply the desiderata, incumbent upon him as editor, but also, as a gratuitous work, to correct the “defects of orthography or expression,” in Dr. Murdock, and to appear “before the world as a clergyman beneficed in the Church of England, and he would be very sorry to act in any degree as if his convictions did not coincide with his interests.” He has also added original matter relating to the history of the English church, “of itself sufficient to form an octavo volume of moderate size.” “Thus unquestionably,” says he, vol. i. p. xi., “the British Isles have at length, offered to their notice, an ecclesiastical history, comprehensive though not superficial, and arranged with special reference to their own use.” Mr. Soames distinguishes his own “original matter” from the notes of his predecessor, by the mark [ED.]. However, we are left in doubt where he corrected the orthography or expression of Dr. Murdock. But we should account him peculiarly well fitted for this task of correction, judging from some remarkable expressions of his own; such as “If men would stop when their leaders mean them,” p. xx.; “after the Council of Trent had sitten,” p. xxxii; “episcopalian protestants form attached citizens in Ameria,” p. xxxiv, & c., & c., & c.
Let us now see what the new editor has added to the labors of Mosheim, McClaine, and Murdock. 1. A preface to each of the four volumes. That of the first fills thirty-four pages, and shows little historical learning or philosophical power on its writer’s part. Some of the conclusions he draws from ecclesiastical history are sufficiently striking, however. He says, that “Republican opinions did not originate among protestant bodies, adhering to the ancient system of ecclesiastical discipline. They arose among such as took divinity from the Calvinistic schools,” & c. p. xxxiv. Again, “From modern ecclesiastical history may be learned the value of liturgies and other well guarded formularies.” Ibid. He admits, that among those who eat the bread of the English church, there have always been some “inclinable to theology of a Socinian cast,” to use his own felicitous expression; but “the discipline and formularies of the church quickly reduced such innovators to silence.”
2. Notes marked [ED.]. Dr. Murdock, with great labor, digested all the most valuable literature of more recent date than Mosheim, and subjoined it in his notes, which represented the state of most questions in ecclesiastical history at the time these notes were published. But since 1832, new works have appeared; various monograms have been written, illustrating particular points of the history of the church or its doctrine, and he would do no small service to the scholar, who should digest all the new contributions and add them to Mosheim’s text. But this is what Mr. Soames never dreams of attempting. He is not familiar with the sources of ecclesiastical history, nor even with the recent works drawn from these sources, or containing them. The works to which he refers are Prideaux’s Connexions; Burton’s attempt to ascertain the chronology, & c.; Burton’s Bampton lectures; his lectures on the ecclesiastical history, &c.; Waterland’s works; Bishop Kaye’s Tertullian; his Justin Martyr; Potter’s discourse of church government, and similar “authorities.” He shows no acquaintance with the recent contributions to ecclesiastical history, that have been written in Germany within the last ten years. He only once mentions such a work. Bulla Reformationis Pauli Papæ tertii ad historiam Concil. Trid. Justineus, & c., illust. H. N. Clausen. Nauniæ, 1830. However, he now and then mentions the works of Ranke and Hürter, but makes little use of either. Prescott’s Ferdinand and Isabella was in his hands, but Gieseler’s works he does not appear to know,
We give the following note, as a fair specimen of the learning and discrimination of Mr. Soames. “When Dr. Mosheim wrote, the world had not seen those elaborate works on pagan idolatry, which have since been produced by Bryant and Faber. Those scholars have laboriously and ingeniously traced heathen superstition to a common source, making it appear little else than the canonization of those eight ancestors of the modern world, whom God mercifully saved in the ark. The Hindoo triad may, therefore, be taken as the three sons of Noah, called in the West, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto. Friga is evidently the same as Rhea. Let the pagan system, in every age and country, be considered as one, and its prevalence may easily be understood. It will stand forth as a corruption of the patriarchal religion, strictly analogous to the Romish corruption of Christianity.” vol. i., pp. 16, 17. But a doctrine very different is taught in a note in the former page, where he follows Cudworth’s opinion of the nature of Polytheism. Similar inconsistencies are not rare in his pages.
Some of his notes are childish, designed to guard against mistakes which none but babes could fall into. Thus, vol. ii., p. 160, Mosheim speaks of John of Damascus in the text, and regards him “as the Thomas and the Lombard of the Greeks,” and we find appended thereto the following note: [Thomas Aquinas and Peter Lombard. ED.] Sometimes, however, his corrections are valuable, though minute. He assures us Dr. Murdock was wrong in calling a certain author a bishop, who in fact was no bishop. Of course he takes his stand in a partisan pulpit, and judges all things exclusively from that “bad eminence,” as if it were the absolute point of view. However, we have now and then found a valuable hint in his notes, relative to the history of the English church, and especially the biography of English writers. He cautions his readers against the prejudice both of Neal and his opponent, Bishop Madox; yet seems willing to excuse the violence of the latter.
3. Several original chapters. In vol. ii., pp. 67–72, he adds a brief chapter on the conversion of England: pp. 399–415, a longer chapter on the religious condition of the Anglo-Saxons. Neither gives indications of much research, as we should judge. There are many manuscript treasures in England, illustrating ecclesiastical affairs, which we hope some clerical scholar will disclose, ere long, to the public. Mr. Soames never goes beyond what is printed, and sees but little which is print.
In vol. iii., pp. 171-248, we have three original chapters on the Reformation in England and Scotland; and p. 427-549, three more on the church of England, Scotland, and Ireland. These chapters contain some matters of importance, perhaps, not previously known to the general readers of ecclesiastical history. He draws, however, from the most obvious sources.
In vol. iv., p. 277-315, is a valuable chapter on the church of England, in the 17th century. A second is added, pp. 402-462, a sketch of ecclesiastical affairs during the 18th century, relating chiefly to England; and a third chapter, pp. 463-508, on the “ecclesiastical history of the earlier years of the 19th century.” Both are hasty sketches. He has no conception of the theological problem, which the Christian church is busied with in this age.
4. Several brief chronological tables; one at the end of each volume, accompanied with notes; Vater’s tables of Ecclesiastical History, &c., translated by Francis Cunningham; and an alphabetical index at the end of the work. The latter is not so full as Dr. Maclaine’s, nor so complete as could be wished.
To sum up the merits and defects of Mr. Soames’s edition, it must be said, that he seems to have made no thorough and scientific study of ecclesiastical history; that his notes are in general trifling and of no value, except, for the most part, to refer to the recent and meagre literature of the English church. We would, however, make a single exception. The history of transubstantiation he seems to have studied more thoroughly than any other department of his subject. In respect to the history of the church in England, Scotland, and Ireland, he has collected into a few pages of easy access, what we must otherwise seek for in several volumes. If he has not done all the duty of an editor, we will take thankfully what he gives. His sketch of the ecclesiastical history of the present century, though superficial, and in some respects scarcely accurate, is yet a convenient statement of some of the outward facts. We will only add, that Mr. Soames is likewise the author of “The Anglo-Saxon Church, its History, Revenues, and General Character;” of the Elizabethan religious History; and of a “Bampton Lecture,” which we have never seen nor heard of, except through his own references, and the advertisements of booksellers.
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