A history of preaching

Front matter

ISTORY OF PREACHING

FROM THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS TO

THE GREAT REFORMERS

Preface

The following work is the fruit of studies pursued and judgments formed during eleven years of service as professor of Homiletics in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, at Louisville, Kentucky. It was the custom of the distinguished and lamented Dr. John A. Broadus, the first incumbent of that chair, to give every year instructive and delightful lectures on the History of Preaching. Under his inspiring teaching my interest as a student was awakened in the subject, and when years afterwards it fell to me first to share his labors of instruction and then to succeed to them, I became more and more deeply interested in the historical part of the course in Homiletics.

The remarkable lack of treatises on the History of Preaching, especially in English, early impressed me, and aroused a desire to do something, however little, towards supplying the need. The difficulty of the task and the pressure of other and heavy burdens have occasioned many misgivings and delays, and there have been of necessity changes of plan in the execution of the work. As now planned the present volume is the first of three proposed books. It deals with the history up to and including the Reformation, the next will treat of Modern European preaching, and the last will present a History of Preaching in the United States. Some material is in hand for these later works, and should this one be fortunate enough to find a public, and should life and leisure be granted me, I hope in time to produce them.

For the completion of the present volume opportunity was kindly afforded by the Trustees of the Seminary in granting me leave of absence for some months to visit Europe. While abroad from June, 1902, to January, 1903, I had time not only to write up much material already gathered, but to visit some of the places made famous in the history of the pulpit, and to read somewhat in a number of the great libraries, including those at Berlin,

2 TREFACE

Leipzig, Rome, Zurich, Geneva, and Paris. I am indebted for courtesies to the managers at these and other places.

In the use of the materials which I had to study, both at home and abroad, three methods have found place: (i) Much of the work done and critical judgments reached is based on personal and independent study of the original sources; (2) Much more, however, is of that mingled sort which rests partly and often chiefly on the work of others, and yet has been confirmed, enlarged or modified by contact with the sources; (3) In a few cases, where circumstances warranted or seemed to require it, I have simply adopted information obtained or views expressed by others. I have endeavored, either in the text or footnotes, to give the requisite indications as to which method has been used. But every one who has attempted this kind of writing knows how utterly impossible it is in all cases to distinguish sharply between what may be properly regarded as the author's own work, and that which he owes to others. I can only say that I have tried to make an honest book, and hereby cheerfully acknowledge my great indebtedness to many excellent workers in this field. I trust the book may find, both among my brethren of the Christian ministry and among others, readers who in their turn may find some pleasure and profit in perusing even so imperfect a presentation of the History of Preaching.

E. C. D.

Louisville, Kentucky, December, 1904.

INTRODUCTION I. The Need of a History of Preaching

The history of preaching has not yet been adequately written. A few works, all of them more or less fragmentary and incomplete, deal with the subject as a whole ; a larger number, some of them remarkably good and satis~ factory, treat of particular epochs or phases of the history; some attention, incidental and often superficial, has been given to preaching by writers of general, ecclesiastical, and literary histories ; and this is all. A thorough, comprehensive, well-proportioned and reasonably complete account of preaching in all periods and countries does not exist, either as the great work of a single author or as a connected series of studies by different authors.

This lack of suitable historic treatment has been variously noticed by different writers. Thus Van Oosterzee,1 in commenting on the lack of historic knowledge among preachers themselves concerning their work, says, "There is still wanting a good history of the art of preaching from the earliest times to the present day ; " and further, " The wish cannot be suppressed that a qualified and vigorous hand might yet be impelled satisfactorily to fill up this gap in the historic-theologic literature." Christlieb,2 in noticing the failure yet to produce an " all-round, satisfying, comprehensive history," seems to give up the expectation as hopeless, because no one is likely to have the " capacity and leisure " for so vast an undertaking. A recent French Catholic writer, the Abbe Boucher,3 rather lightly dismisses the matter with the remark that such a work would be unnecessary as it would really be a history of the progress of Christianity. This is too superficial a view ; and the suggestion of Christlieb is no more appropriate for the history of

1 Practical Theology (Am. ed.), pp. 67, 68.

2 Geschichte der Predigt, article in the Herzog-Plitt Real-Encyklopadie, Bd. 18, S. 466.

* L' Eloquence de la Chaire, Introduction.

preaching than for other subjects which cover vast fields, long periods, and practically limitless materials.

The materials for writing the history of the Christian pulpit are abundant, for some epochs superabundant. Only for a few and comparatively unimportant periods and departments of the subject is there scarcity. These materials consist, first of all, in the innumerable biographies and sketches of preachers of all ages and lands, and in the practically infinite quantity of published sermons. Then account must be taken of ecclesiastical histories and archaeologies, as these are obviously very closely related to preaching. And then the histories of civilization and of literature contain much that bears on preaching, directly and indirectly ; and of course some knowledge, and the more the better, of general history is requisite to understanding that of the pulpit. Besides these sources of information at first hand there is a considerable literature which discusses different branches of the general subject, and is indispensable as a help to the historian. There are not a few excellent treatises and monographs which greatly reduce the necessity for research in some quarters of the field. Evidently the historian of preaching has at his disposal ample material for his work.

In fact the great abundance of the material is one of the chief difficulties in the way of writing the history of preaching. Even allowing for all the helps, and pressing the principle of selection as far as is admissible, there still remains a vast bulk of literature to go over, a deal of information to accumulate, study, digest, arrange, and finally set forth in writing. On the other hand, another difficulty arises from the lacks and gaps in the literature. Many periods and branches of the subject are still without adequate treatment, and there are very few general works to serve as basis, guide, or even warning, in the production of a really complete general history. When we add to these intrinsic difficulties of the task the exacting requisites which the modern critical and scientific spirit lays down for the writing of history,1 we cannot

1 See, for example, how these are set forth by Langlois and Seisriobos, in their valuable Introduction to the Study of History (Eng. trans.).

wonder that so little has yet been accomplished in this department. It is as impossible to reach perfection in writing history as in any other human undertaking, and even to attain to excellence requires a rare combination of aptitude, learning, practice, enthusiasm, patience and leisure which might well appall the most competent.

On the other hand, it must be remembered that if difficulties of this sort were allowed their full force nobody worth attending to would have the courage to write history at all; for these obstacles are more or less incident to all historical research and writing. There is no more reason why a history of preaching should be given up as hopeless than histories of literature, of philosophy, of art, and the like.

A very slight glance at what has already been done will justify this conclusion, and at the same time lead to a consideration of what remains to be done in this too much neglected field. Foot-notes in the body of this work will give a fuller account of the literature.1 Here only some brief statements are proposed. The literature naturally falls into the two groups of general and special works.

Of treatises bearing on the general history of preaching three sorts may be specified. First, there are those somewhat fragmentary works which may be called contributions to the history. Here, for example, belongs the old but still serviceable book of Lentz, Geschichte der Homiletik, published in 1839, containing brief biographical and critical notices of some of the more noted preachers of ancient, mediaeval and modern times, with selections from their sermons. Somewhat like this, but with full sermons and proportionately less of biographical and critical matter is the valuable collection by H. C. Fish, Masterpieces of Pulpit Eloquence, published at New York in 1850, and still reprinted. Besides these are several later works, in various languages, of this general character.

1 Panrel, Geschichte der Christlichen Beredsamkeit, in the introduction ably reviews the earlier literature up to 1831. Christlieb, in his two articles in Herzog-Plitt — Geschichte der Predigt and Homiletik — also has a good review of the literature to about 1886. Broadus mentions some of the best books in the appendix to his Lectures on the History of Preaching.

A second class of writings dealing with the whole subject are certain sketches, or compendious outlines. One of the best of these is that of J. J. Van Oosterzee in his Practical Theology (translation published at New York about 1879) 5 an(i there are several by German authors on Homiletics, as Th. Harnack, Hering, and others ; also the sketch by Professor Hoppin in his Homiletics is specially noteworthy, as he discusses American preachers neglected by the others. But by far the most comprehensive and thorough sketch, so complete indeed that one hesitates to call it a sketch, is the great article by Christlieb, Gcschichtc dcr Prcdigt, in the supplement to the eighteenth volume of the Herzog-Plitt Real Encyclopedic} Even in its present form it is the nearest approach yet made to a complete though necessarily compendious history.

The remaining class of general histories of preaching are those few works which in some measure present a connected view of the whole field. In 1839 a German scholar, Panicl, published the first volume of a proposed general history of preaching under the title Pragmatischc Gcschichtc dcr Christlichcn Bercdsamkcit. It was a wellplanned work and showed both research and the scientific spirit, but unhappily it remains only a fragment, having got no further than Augustine in the fifth century. It is still valuable for the early centuries. Next should be mentioned the GcschicJitc dcr Prcdigt von den Anfangen bis aitf Schlciennachcr of Richard Rothe, edited from his manuscript remains by Trumpelmann, and published in 1881. This came nearer being a general history than any other work that had yet appeared, but it is full of gaps, much of it is mere compilation, and it lacks completeness and finish in many ways. In 1876 Dr. John A. Broadus published a small volume of Lectures on the History of Preaching, which had been delivered at Newton Theological Institution, near Boston. The book does not profess to cover the ground as a formal or scientific treatise, but contains some excellent work in the way of historical generalization and comment, of discussion of certain periods and men, and of

1 At the time of this writing the new edition (ed. by Professor Hauck of Leipzig) has not reached this article.

keen and sympathetic criticism. Similar in method are the Lectures on the History of Preaching (1888), of Dr. John Ker of Scotland, which give a slight account of ancient and mediaeval preaching, but chiefly present in a very pleasing way some of the modern German preachers. There is a spirited and readable course of lectures by the late Fleming James, D.D., The Message and the Messengers (1897), which is not a history, but, as the subtitle correctly describes it, a series of " lessons from1 the history of preaching." The most recent work is that of the late Professor T. Harwood Pattison, of Rochester Theological Seminary, Rochester, New York, The History of Christian Preaching. The work is much too brief to present adequate consideration of the great mass of material, and it does not claim to be a complete history ; but it gives a series of brilliant short sketches of many of the leading preachers, with some comment on the condition of preaching in all the Christian ages.

When we come to works which treat of special epochs, countries, sects, or other departments of the history of preaching, a very much better showing can be made for the literature. There are numerous treatises of varying authorship, date, and language. Many of them have been of inestimable service in the preparation of this work, and are mentioned in the foot-notes where appropriate, so that detailed notice is not here needed.

From this brief general mention we may see that while something has been done, much remains yet to be done in this inviting field of religious history.

There is, and of course always will be, place for that class of writings called " contributions " to history, that is, accumulations of material in the way of biographical, critical, and other monographs, which will facilitate research and study, and sometimes even render them unnecessary where the historian can depend upon a careful and judicious investigator. Some of the special works spoken of in the previous paragraphs are admirable specimens of this sort of writing, but there is need for many more of the same sort.

But the most pressing present need is a general history. Such a work might take one, or indeed all, of three forms: (1) A compendious manual covering the whole ground, but briefly and clearly; (2) A larger work of several volumes, going more into biographical, critical and general historical detail; (3) A magnum opus of many volumes really covering the subject and remaining a complete and enduring authority. It would be very difficult for any one scholar nowadays to produce a work of the third kind, for it would require a lifetime of leisure and plenty of means to accomplish the task, but it might be done in shorter time by the cooperation under competent editorship of a number of scholars who should devote themselves to particular epochs and countries. The books of Broadus, Ker, and especially Pattison, fall under the first head. It is the aim of the author to meet in some modest measure the second of the forementioned needs. But it will require many works of many laborers and through many years before the place of preaching in human history can be adequately set forth. To some consideration of that great sphere we may now appropriately turn.

2. The Place of Preaching in History

Since Christianity became an active force in human affairs there has been upward and onward movement, and one mighty factor in that progress has been preaching. There are a number of ways in which the importance of preaching in history may be shown.

The most remote point of connection should be first noted, that is, the influence of preaching upon the general course of events. The influence has necessarily been reciprocal — preaching has shaped events, and events have affected preaching. More detailed statements will make the point clearer.

The life and progress of nations, the rise and fall of governments have often been closely connected with preaching. This is no extravagant claim, as we shall have some occasion to see in the course of this work. The great names of the Apostle Paul, of John Chrysostom, of Augustine and Ambrose, of Leo and Gregory, of Boniface and Bernard, of Wiclif and Savonarola, of Luther and Calvin and Knox, of Edwards, Whitefield and Wesley, are some of those which suggest how variously and profoundly the larger life of nations has sometimes been influenced by the preacher.

In regard to customs and morals, however, the contact of preaching with history is more visible and fruitful. Preaching has profoundly and for the most part wholesomely influenced the morals and customs of mankind. And in those few cases where the influence of the pulpit may be justly open to criticism, the injurious effects have been comparatively trivial and not permanent. On the other hand preaching has, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse, received moulding from contemporary customs and standards of ethics. While this sensitiveness to environment has often kept the pulpit from stagnation and given to it greater power to deal with the needs of the times, we must confess that sometimes public sentiment and entrenched evil, rather than the ostensibly accepted higher authorities, have colored the language of sermons.

Progress in the arts and sciences has contributed in many ways to preaching. Here it has received more than it has given; but its influence has not been void of good and help even in this direction ; for the pulpit has many a time given intelligent aid and stimulus to material enterprises which had in view the present and permanent good of mankind. So also preaching has availed itself of the advantages of commerce to herald the gospel to other lands and peoples, and used many an improvement and device in the material sphere to make more effective its work at home.

The connection of preaching with the progress of human culture is real and extensive. Sometimes there has been conflict, sometimes mutual jealousy, but more frequently reciprocal and cordial help. Let us notice some of the particulars.

As to art it is beyond doubt that music, painting, sculpture, architecture, and even the industrial arts, have owed something to preaching, and preaching something to them. But no great amount of reciprocal influence is claimed in this sphere.

In philosophy, however, the mutual influence has been profound and profoundly important. The effect has not always been for the best on either party, but it is safe to say that preaching has oftener been hurt by philosophy than philosophy by preaching. But there has also been wholesome and helpful interaction. Theology and ethics are fundamental in pulpit work, and their relations to philosophy are necessarily close. Names of preachers who have been eminent in philosophical work and influence are numerous; a few of the most important are Justin Martyr, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, among the ancients ; Anselm, Aquinas, and others of the great schoolmen of the middle ages ; Eckhart among the mystics; Calvin among the theologians of the Reformation ; Edwards among American Puritans.

In regard to science there has often been full and cordial mutual recognition. Some eminent scientists have not failed in reverence for Christian institutions, the pulpit included; and some preachers here and there have been skilled scientists in various branches. But on the whole it must be sadly admitted that the relations between science and the pulpit have not been as friendly and mutually profitable as could be wished. If the progress of science has at times suffered from the dogmatism of the pulpit, even so the preaching of a sorely needed gospel has been sometimes hindered or harmed in effect by the dogmatism of science. Preachers have been known to assail science in an unchristian spirit, and scientists have perhaps as often denounced and discredited preaching in an unscientific spirit. Pulpit ignorance of science has been fairly matched by scientific ignorance of the aims and realities of the pulpit. Narrowness and arrogance on both sides have done their full share of mischief. It is time for a better understanding, for mutual respect, for more cordial united service between these two great agencies for human good. Reverent science seeking hidden truth should surely be no foe to earnest preaching proclaiming revealed truth ; and the herald of God's saving grace in Christ should not be the enemy of the searcher after God's wondrous thought in creation. There is room in God's world for both the scientist and the preacher ; there should be room in their hearts for each other.

In the very nature of the preacher's work lies his rela-

INTRODUCTION T I

tion to the study and use of language. The proclama- - tion of the gospel, the translation of the Bible, and the creation of a literature of Christian instruction in many languages of the earth have been largely the work of preachers. The impetus thus given to linguistic science has been great and fruitful. Nor must the study and employment of language for the high purposes of discourse be forgotten ; not a few preachers have been masters and models of eloquence.

In the sphere of literature there has been great and hearty reciprocal service. Preaching has both directly and indirectly contributed much to literature. Yet it must be said that while many a Paul has met with his surprised and admiring Festus, it is also true that too often literature, especially fiction, has done the pulpit injustice by its one-sided presentation of the weaker or extreme types of ministerial character. But on the whole literature and the preacher have through many moons been dear lovers. Illiterate preachers have served to emphasize by contrast the learning of their more cultured brethren. Incidentally to their main work numbers of preachers have won enduring laurels in the republic of letters. Often, too, the pen of the writer and the tongue of the preacher have been allied forces in campaigns against ignorance and error.

As to education no openminded observer can fail to recognize the intimate relations between it and preaching. The debt is reciprocal and large ; and it has been so all along the history of the pulpit. There has hardly ever been any really good educational movement which has failed to receive the steadfast and efficient support of the preachers as a class. In turn education has given her choicest treasures and her best discipline to the pulpit. Scientific and literary training have both served the preacher, naturally the latter more ; and especially has there been necessarily close affinity between preaching and rhetorical culture. Sometimes this has been unduly neglected, and sometimes unduly magnified. Artistic, not to say artificial, oratory has not seldom been ambitiously substituted for simple and earnest proclamation of divine truth. On the other hand, the faithful presentation of the gospel has often exemplified the noblest uses of rhetoric, and the work of the pulpit has exhibited not a few specimens of the highest oratory. Thus in many ways is the history of preaching interwoven with that of civilization and culture.

It remains to consider the largest surface of contact between preaching and history, and this, of course, is its place in the religious life and progress of mankind. Preaching is an essential part and a distinguishing feature of Christianity, and accordingly the larger history of general religious movements includes that of preaching. Here, as before, a reciprocal influence must be reckoned with : the movement has sometimes produced the preaching, the preaching sometimes the movement, but most commonly they have each helped the other. Illustrations readily occur.

The spread of Christianity, both geographically and numerically, has been largely the work of preaching. The preacher as a missionary has always been the advance herald of the gospel. From apostolic days, through the long Middle Ages, and even down to present times this has been true. Moreover, the leavening of the nations already reached by the gospel, the adding to the church daily those who are being saved, is, on the human side and to a great extent, the result of preaching. We must not underestimate the value and effect of personal example and suasion, but history forbids that we should assign an inferior place to preaching in bringing men to know Christ as Saviour and Lord, and in training them in the Christian life, doctrine and service. For spiritual life, doctrine and service are the very marrow of the gospel, and therefore of the preaching of the gospel. The message of the true preacher in every age has had to do with these fundamental things. On the other hand, Christian life as expressed and exemplified in ecclesiastical institutions, and Christian doctrine as formally stated in creeds, or even when only vaguely underlying accepted beliefs and usages, have in their turn powerfully influenced the character and aims of preaching. Alas! the story is not always a pleasing one; for doctrinal and sectarian polemics have too often been the preacher's chief concern.

Human progress of every kind is usually not steady and continuous, but rather goes by waves, like the rising tide. Declension and revival, forward and backward, up and down, these are the common Christian phenomena, individual, local, general. Even the most superficial study reveals the connection, at once causal and resultant, between movements of the kind described and preaching. Decline of spiritual life and activity in the churches is commonly accompanied by a lifeless, formal, unfruitful preaching, and this partly as cause, partly as effect. On the other hand, the great revivals of Christian history can most usually be traced to the work of the pulpit, and in their progress they have developed and rendered possible a high order of preaching.

Again and again in the following pages we shall see illustrations of the positions taken in this discussion, and the right of preaching to a fair large room in history's many-chambered mansion may easily be vindicated and assured. So it is appropriate at this point of our introductory studies to say something as to the historic origins of preaching.

3. The Historic Origins of Preaching

History is a study of origins and developments in human affairs. Strictly speaking the actual beginnings of most human institutions are difficult to discover, and our knowledge of them is chiefly conjectural or inferential. What we call beginnings or causes are themselves effects of previous causes and movements, and what we call effects may be the causes of subsequent events ; and so the ceaseless current of time and change flows on and on. The history of any people or subject, to be complete, must begin as far back as knowledge reaches and come down to present times. But the narrative may confine itself within more or less arbitrary limits at the discretion of the historian. The scope of the present volume is to trace the history of preaching from the Apostolic Fathers at the end of the first century to and including the great Reformers of the sixteenth century. But it seems desirable to give here at least a summary sketch of the origin and development of preaching before the point at which the more detailed account begins, in order that the reader may have before him to some extent the story from the beginnings of onr knowledge.

There are three great converging lines of preparation in the way of materials, tendencies and events, which under providential guidance conspired to start, in the age immediately following the Apostles, that series of causes and effects which we are to study under the name of the history of preaching. These three elements of origination, named in the ascending order of their immediacy and importance, are the ancient oratory, the Hebrew prophecy, and the Christian gospel. From this last, as directly resting upon the second, and after a time considerably influenced by the first, came preaching as history knows it. Oratory and prophecy were preparatory and contributing forces, the gospel was the real originating cause, which took to itself elements of tendency and power from both the others.

How soon did men find and use the gift of persuasive speech? How long came oratory after language itself? There is no answer to these questions. It is likely indeed that oratory grew out of conversation, but its use and development do not tell the story of its origin. Passing by any vague theories, whether serious or humorous, of a possible derivation from the chatterings of supposititious simian ancestors, we may hazard some more plausible conjectures as to the rise and use of oratory before we discover certain traces of it in existing records. It is a natural inference that, connected with the desire and capacity of one person to influence another, language should at once have been employed for this purpose, and that from such use in conversation and dialogue it should have come to be employed by one in address to several others, from two or three to a multitude.

Spencer1 conjectures that oratory, especially religious oratory, grew out of laudatory harangues at first addressed to heroes on returning from victorious wars, and then made in favor of deified heroes, and so of the gods. He thinks he sees traces of this custom in the acclamations of Israel at the Red Sea, and at the victory of David over Goliath, and outside of the Biblical records in some observances of the Fiji Islanders. In the same way arose 1 Principles of Sociology, Vol. III., pp. 216 ft.

epic poetry, and the drama. The conjecture seems far-fetched, a pound of inference from a pennyweight of observation.

If the ethnological theory be accepted that the North American Indians represent in some respects the stage of development reached by man in the so-called Stone Age previous to recorded history, it may be plausibly claimed that the remarkable eloquence sometimes exhibited by these " untutored children of the forest " was a sample of prehistoric oratory, and gives real trace of a very remote origin of the use of persuasive speech for personal or public ends. But leaving these theories, let us come to actual history.