Theology Today - Vol 15, No. 3 - October 1958 - BOOK REVIEW - The Formation of Christian Dogmas; An Historical Study of Its Problem

410 - The Formation of Christian Dogmas; An Historical Study of Its Problem

The Formation of Christian Dogmas;
An Historical Study of Its Problem
By Martin Werner
English Translation by S. G. F. Brandon
352 pp. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1957. $7.50.

Professor Martin Werner of Bern regards the history of Christian dogma as a melancholy story of the obscuration of the message of Jesus which originally concerned the immediate supernatural consummation of the World through the catastrophic arrival of the Kingdom of God. Although Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer have conclusively demonstrated the truth about Jesus, the form-critics and the exponent of "realized eschatology" have willfully continued the process of obscuration. Like a voice from the past, Dr. Werner asserts that the "consistent eschatology" of Schweitzer alone provides the "unifying insight into history of Primitive Christianity" which can make sense of the historical evidence. He asserts, rather than discusses, the view that Schweitzer was right after all; and then he goes on to describe how we must regard the development of Christian theology on the basis of this assumption. The fateful process of obscuration began as a result of the disappointment of the eschatological hope of the earliest followers of Jesus, and it is still

411 - The Formation of Christian Dogmas; An Historical Study of Its Problem

going on because the challenge of Schweitzer has not been faced. The history of dogma is thus the story of the "de-eschatologizing" of the primitive Christian gospel and its transformation into Catholicism (and, of course, later, into Protestant Orthodoxy). Book One deals with "the abandonment of the basic doctrine of Primitive Christianity consequent in the non-fulfilment of the Parousia." It sets out to trace the process of the transformation of the Galilean gospel into the Hellenized Gnostic Catholicism of the second century and onwards. Through the disappointment of the hope of Christ's coming on the clouds, the primitive eschatological doctrine of Christ's person and work disintegrated. Book two deals with the ensuing construction of the dogmas which were substituted for it. The Church indefensibly claimed to hold fast to its primitive heritage by means of re-interpreting it with the help of what was deemed appropriate in the religious content of contemporary Helnistic syncretism. New dogmas of the divinity of Christ, of the sacramental significance of his death, of the two natures in Christ, of the trinity, of the Church and Sacraments, were formulated in this process of deceitful falsification. "At the turn of the fourth century there was ushered in a period of unrestrained and increasing theological mendacity, which in the course of its age-long doctrinal dispute produced the dotrines of the Trinity and the God-man of the two-natured Christ, which were for so long fundamental for the Church." So much for the view that the Holy Spirit was given to lead the Church into all truth!

The translator, Professor S. G. F. Brandon of Manchester, says that the introduction of Professor Werner's interpretation into English-speaking theological circles should open up new lines of thought and supply a needed stimulus to fresh consideration of the formulation of the Nicene and Chalcedonian faith. But it is a repudiation of that faith, not a reconsideration of it, that Professor Werner is advocating. Nor need it be supposed that English-speaking theologians had to wait to consider Dr. Werner's views until this translation appeared. His work, Die Entstchung des christlichen Dogmas (of which this translation is a pruned version), appeared originally in 1941, and it was considered by Professor H. E. W. Turner of Durham in his book, The Pattern of Christian Truth (London, 1954). Both explicitly and implicitly Dr. Turner controverts Werner's thesis. While admitting that this work is "very erudite," Professor Brandon seeks to discount its criticism of Werner: "since it originated in the form of Bampton Lectures, delivered in the University Church of Oxford, the approach therein is essentially apologetic and the undertaking as a whole is consciously a defence of orthodoxy." We may allow this testimonial to stand without further comment.

412 - The Formation of Christian Dogmas; An Historical Study of Its Problem

This English version of Dr. Werner's work contains an Addendum, not found in the German editions (1941 and 1954), "which indicates the consequences which the transformation of the eschatological Primitive Christianity into the Hellenistic mystery-religion of Early Catholicism has had for the whole inner history of Christianity down to the twentieth century." It summarizes some of the material set forth more fully in Professor Werner's Der protestantische Wegdes Glaubens (Band 1, 1955). It is difficult to understand from it just what we ought to substitute for the historic faith of Nicaea and Chalcedon (or, if Schweitzer was wrong, of Jesus and his Church). Probably a Professor Werner of A.D. 2058 will describe it as a syncretistic medley of twentieth-century Gnostic speculation.

Alan Richardson
University of Nottingham
Nottingham, England