Jaroslav Pelikan-The Christian Tradition

[Sitaram]

I have frequently mention Jaroslav Pelikan's five volume work in my posts.
These are available in paperback.

• Volume I - The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition..(100-600 C.E.)
• Volume II - The Spirit of Eastern Christendom .........(600-1700 C.E.)
• Volume III - The Growth of Medieval Theology .........(600-1300 C.E.)
• Volume IV - Reformation of Church and Dogma .........(1300-1700 C.E.)
• Volume V - Christian Doctrine and Modern Culture ....(since 1700 C.E.)

Jaroslav Pelikan is a Sterling Professor of History at Yale.

He has a gift for making sweeping, breathtaking observations.
Here is one shining example from the Introduction to Volume I:

- page 5

The relation between believing, teaching, and confessing also implies that both the subject matter and the source material for the history of the development of doctrine will shift, gradually but steadily, as we trace it through the history of the church. This is not intended to say that a doctrine, once formulated, stops developing and becomes fixed; not even the dogma of the Trinity has stood perfectly still since its adoption and clarification. It does mean that having developed from what was believed to what was taught, and perhaps even to what was confessed, a doctrine gradually became part of the authorized deposit of the faith. To trace its further development we shall have to look increasingly through by no means exclusively, to its professional expositors, the theologians, as they speculated on it both in their philosophy and in their mystagogy, as they studied it and criticized it, as they used it to interpret the very Scriptures on which it was supposedly based, and as they expanded and revised it. In later volumes of this history, therefore, the history of doctrine will move into, but will never quite become, the history of theology.

A graphic sign of this shift through the centuries is contained in the evolution of the theologian's vocation. During the years 100 to 600, most theologians were bishops; from 600 to 1500 in the West, they were monks; since 1500 they have been university professors.

Gregory I, who died in 604, was a bishop who had been a monk; Martin Luther was a monk who became a university professor



Each of these lifestyles has left its mark on the job description of the theologian, but also on the way doctrine has continued to develop back and forth between believing, teaching and confessing.

 

[SFG75]

Volumes I and IV sound like the most interesting ones to read IMHO. It doesn't surprise me that after awhile, most of the influential theologians became professors, especially since after 1500, many private colleges and universities were created. Though, that isn't to say that none were created before then.

 

[Peder]

Sitaram,
If I were looking for a major reading project right now I think your post would have decided it for me. That excerpt was a very clear summary of Pelikan's deftness and attitude toward the material and, if the five volumes are anything like that, they should be a pleasure to read!
I hope I can find them on the shelf somewhere in order to give them a serious browse, take a look at the price, and who knows......?
Peder