Ecclesiastical history of the Catholic Church refers to the history of the Catholic Church as an institution, written from a particular perspective. There is a traditional approach to such historiography. The generally identified starting point is Eusebius of Caesarea, and his work Church History.
Since there is no assumption that contemporary historians of the Catholic Church who are also Catholics adopt this perspective, this “traditional approach” is a chapter of historiography, not yet closed, but applying to a definite area that is not central to the academic history of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Approach, traditional Catholic view
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913,
Ecclesiastical history is the scientific investigation and the methodical description of the temporal development of the Church considered as an institution founded by Jesus Christ and guided by the Holy Ghost for the salvation of mankind. ...[It covers] the life of the Church in all its manifestations from the beginning of its existence to our own day among the various divisions of mankind hitherto reached by Christianity. While the Church remains essentially the same despite the changes which she undergoes in time, these changes help to exhibit more fully her internal and external life.
Its branches therefore include:
History of missions, in the widest sense History of ecclesiastical polity, of heresies and their opponents, and of the relations of the Church with non-Catholic religious associations History of dogma, of ecclesiastical theology, and ecclesiastical sciences in general History of liturgy History of ecclesiastical art History of the Catholic hierarchy, of the constitution and canon law of the Church History of religious orders History of discipline, religious life, Christian civilization
Methods Critical treatment of the sources requires palaeography, diplomatics, and criticism.
Apart from that, the approach is not that of a skeptic:
The ecclesiastical historian … can by no means exclude the possibility of supernatural factors. That God cannot intervene in the course of nature, and that miracles are therefore impossible is an assumption which has not been and cannot be proved, and which makes a correct appreciation of facts in their objective reality impossible. Herein appears the difference between the standpoint of the believing Christian historian, who bears in mind not only the existence of God but also the relations of creatures to Him, and that of the rationalistic and infidel historian, who rejects even the possibility of Divine intervention in the course of natural law.
It is based in teleology:
The Christian historian keeps in view the fact that the founder of the Church is the Son of God, and that the Church was instituted by Him in order to communicate to the whole human race, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, its salvation through Christ. It is from this standpoint that the Christian historian estimates all particular events in their relation to the end or purpose of the Church. The unbelieving historian on the other hand recognizing only natural forces both at the origin and throughout the development of Christianity, and rejecting the possibility of any supernatural intervention is incapable of appreciating the work of the Church in as far as it is the agent of Divine design.
As well as taking the Church as its subject matter, it is Church-centered, and takes the Church's teachings at their own estimation:
The Catholic historian insists on the supernatural character of the Church, its doctrines, institutions, and standards of life, in so far as they rest on Divine revelation, and acknowledge the continual guidance of the Church by the Holy Ghost. All this is for him objective reality, certain truth, and the only foundation for the true, scientific pragmatism of ecclesiastical history.
Universality The fact that schisms have occurred in Christian history is subordinated to the claim to universality of the Catholic Church, which is not treated as one church among many:
The Catholic historian does not admit that the various forms of the Christian religion may be taken, roughly speaking, as a connected whole, nor does he consider them one and all as so many imperfect attempts to adapt the teachings and institutions of Christ to the changing needs of the times, nor as progressive steps towards a future higher unity wherein alone we must seek the perfect ideal of Christianity. There is but one Divine revelation given us by Christ, but one ecclesiastical tradition based on it; hence one only Church can be the true one, i. e. the Church in which the aforesaid revelation is found in its entirety, and whose institutions have developed on the basis of this revelation and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
On the other hand, the effect of churches outside the Catholic Church is factored into the discussion.
Traditional periodization First Period The foundation of the Church and the development of fixed standards of ecclesiastical life within the limits of Græco-Roman civilization.
Second Period The Church as a major force in the new Romanic, German, and Slavic states of Europe, the secession of Oriental Christendom from ecclesiastical unity and the final overthrow of the Byzantine Empire.
Third Period The collapse of religious unity among the Western European nations, and the reformation from within of Catholic Church faced with Protestantism. Immense geographical expansion of the Church, with missionaries in South America, part of North America and numerous in Asia and Africa.
Turning points
Some considered the pontificate of Gregory the Great in 590,Neander, , Baur, etc. or,Möller, more generally, the end of the 6th and the middle of the 7th century as the close of the first period; others took the Sixth General Council in 680,Döllinger Kurtz or the Trullan synod of 692,Alzog, Hergenröther, von Funk, Knöpfler or the end of the 7th century; others again close the first period with St. Boniface,Ritter, Niedner or with the Iconoclasts,Johann Karl Ludwig Gieseler, Johann Adam Möhler or with Charlemagne.Hefele, Hase, Weingarten For the West, Kraus regards the beginning of the 7th century as the close of the first period; for the East, the end of the same century.
Similarly, along the line of division between the second and the third periods are crowded events of great importance to ecclesiastical life: the Renaissance with its influence upon all intellectual life, the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, the discovery of the Americas and the new problems which the Church had to solve in consequence, the appearance of Luther and the heresy of Protestantism, the Council of Trent with its decisive influence on the evolution of the interior life of the Church. Protestant historians have regarded the appearance of Luther as the beginning of the third period. A few Catholic authors (e.g. Kraus) closed the second period with the middle of the 15th century.
Nor do authors perfectly agree on the turning-points which are to be inserted within the chief periods. It is true that the conversion of Constantine the Great affected the life of the Church so profoundly that the reign of this first Christian emperor is generally accepted as marking a sub-division in the first period. In the second period, especially prominent personalities usually mark the limits of the several sub-divisions, e.g. Charlemagne, Gregory VII, Boniface VIII, though this leads to the undervaluation of other important factors, e. g. the Greek Schism, the Crusades. Recent writers, therefore, assume other boundary lines which emphasize the forces active in the life of the Church rather than prominent personalities. In subdividing the third period the same difficulty presents itself. Many historians consider the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century as an event of sufficient importance to demand a new epoch; others see a distinct epochal line in the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), with which the formation of great Protestant territories came to an end.
Sources Sources fall naturally into two classes:
Remains (reliquiae, Ueberreste) or immediate sources, i. e. such as prove a fact directly, being themselves part or remnant of the fact. To this class belong e. g. liturgical customs, ecclesiastical institutions, acts of the popes and councils, art-products, etc.; also monuments set up to commemorate events, e. g. inscriptions. Tradition or mediate sources, i. e. such as rest upon the statements of witnesses who communicate an event to others. Tradition may be oral (narrative and legends), written (writings of particular authors), or pictorial (pictures, statues).
Remains The remains of the Church's past, which give direct evidence of historical facts, are the following:
Inscriptions, i.e. texts written on durable material, which were either meant to perpetuate the knowledge of certain acts or which describe the character and purpose of a particular object. The Christian inscriptions of different epochs and countries are now accessible in numerous collections. Monuments erected for Christian purposes, especially tombs, sacred edifices, monasteries, hospitals for the sick and pilgrims; objects used in the liturgy or private devotions. Liturgies, rituals, particularly liturgical books of various kinds, which were once used in Divine service. Necrologies and confraternity-books used at the prayers and public services for the living and the dead. Papal acts, Bulls and Briefs to a great extent edited in the papal "Bullaria", "Regesta", and special ecclesiastico-national collections. Acts and decrees of general councils and of particular synods. Collections of official decrees of Roman congregations, bishops, and other ecclesiastical authorities. Rules of faith (symbola fldei) drawn up for the public use of the Church, various collections of which have been made. Official collections of ecclesiastical laws juridically obligatory for the whole Church. Rules and constitutions of orders and congregations. Concordats between the ecclesiastical and the secular power. Civil laws, since they often contain matters bearing on religion or of ecclesiastical interest.
Tradition These comprise those sources which rest on tradition alone, and which, unlike the remains, are themselves no part of the fact. They are:
Collections of acts of the martyrs, of legends and lives of the saints. Collections of lives of the popes (Liber Pontificalis) and of bishops of particular Churches. Works of ecclesiastical writers, which contain information about historical events; to some extent all ecclesiastical literature belongs to this category. Ecclesiastico-historical works, which take on more or less the character of sources, especially for the time in which their authors lived. Pictorial representations (paintings, sculptures, etc.).
Auxiliary sciences Special auxiliary sciences (e. g. epigraphy, palaeography, numismatics) deal with certain particular kinds of the above-mentioned sources.
The study of the languages of the sources, which necessitates the use of lexicons, either general or special (i. e. for the language of particular authors).Among the general lexicons or glossaries are: Du Fresne du Cange, "Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae graecitatis" (2 vols., Lyons, 1688); Du Fresne du Cange, "Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae latinitatis"; Forcellini, "Lexicon totius latinitatis" (Padua, 1771, often reprinted). "Thesaurus linguae latinae" (begun at Leipzig, 1900)