I have been teaching church history for over 13 years. One of the first topics of my or any course is to discuss the definition of the subject and the sources on which it is based.
Doing some background work for my MTh I have made something of a breakthrough, which I would like to share with a wider audience.
1. The earliest sources on church history, besides the New Testament itself (and Josephus), are writers such as Hegesippus and Tatian, quoted by Eusebius.
2. It is well-known that Eusebius of Caesarea is the father of Church History. His Ecclesiastical History, composed in the early years of Emperor Constantine, is the first comprehensive church history. It is also well-known that Eusebius' work was continued by Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret in the V century and by Theodore the Lector and Evagrius Scholasticus in the VI century.
3. However, I have now found authoritative references that after Evagrius Scholasticus, no one in the East continued the work of Eusebius in the same vein (Lebedev). Likewise, Theophylact of Simocatta, whose covers the period up to 631/641 is the last in the line of secular historians.
4. In the Eastern Roman Empire there followed a "Dark Age" (Treadgold) from 634 to 718 during which time "no extant chronicle [was] composed" (Mango).
5. The next phase of Eastern Christian historiography, including church history, begins with Theophanes the Confessor, writing in the 9th century, whose Chronicle represents the sole source for events during the period 602-813. He was followed by a set of historians referred to collectively as "Theophanes Continuatus", whose writings cover the period 813-963.
6. After Evagrius and Theophylact of Simocatta, and inspired by the approach of Procopius, sacred and secular historiographies merged. A succession of historians known as the Scriptores Byzantini (Schaff, Lebedev) chronicled the history of the Eastern Roman church and state. For example Leo the Deacon (959-976) was followed by Michael Psellus (976-1078), who in turn was followed by Anna Comnene (1069-1118). This line of historiography can be broken down into at least two "streams", namely the histories and the chronicles.
7. As for the western Church, the starting point is
Rufinus, who both translated and extended Eusebius' Church History, as did Jerome in respect of Eusebius' Chronicle. Later Cassiodorus' Latin abridgement of Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret (
Historia Tripartita) brought Greek church history to the Latin-speaking West. Major writers of general western church history include Orosius and Prosper, as well as the much later Bartholomaeus of Lucca and Antonio Pierozzi, who covered the entire period into the XIV and XV centuries respectively.
8. The advent of the Protestant Reformation in the XVI century saw a renewed interest in Church History, also as an ideological battleground. On the Protestant side
Flacius and others pioneered Protestant church historiography with The Magdeburg Centuries. He was followed by such greats as Hottinger and later D'Aubign
é. The Roman Catholic response begins with
Baronius' Ecclesiastical Annals. In this Roman Catholic tradition stand such experts as Bossuet, Tillemont and D
öllinger.
9. A further turning point in church history is marked by the emergence of a more critical approach, represented, for example, by
Adolf Von Harnack (although beginning much earlier). Even conservative church historians such as Neander and Schaff may be categorised in this group, since they also also interact with the questions and hypotheses which arose in this connection.
I have found this periodisation helpful in gaining an overview of sources for church history:
-
Pre-Eusebius (or sources which Eusebius refers to)
- Eusebius and those who continued his work in the V and VI centuries
- The Dark Age (634-718)
- The 'Scriptores Byzantini' i.e. those who chronicled the history of the church and empire based in Constantinople.
- Western church history starting with Rufinus of Aquileia and up until the Reformation.
- Protestant and Catholic church history following the Protestant Reformation of the XVI century.
- Post-critical church history, starting in the 18th century.
I have not, as yet, researched Eastern Orthodox sources post-1453.
I also appreciate that there are separate strains of non-Nicene/Chalcedonian Christianity with their own historians, such as John of Ephesus (Monophysite).
