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.
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.
[20] Zacharias Rhetor, at first an advocate at Berytus in Phoenicia and then (at least from 536) Bishop of Mitylene in the Island of Lesbos, composed, while yet a layman, an ecclesiastical history, which describes the period from 450 to 491, but is mostly taken up with personal experiences of the author in Egypt and Palestine.
A major collection of the early Greek historians of the Church is that of Henri de Valois in three folio volumes (Paris, 1659–73; improved by William Reading, Cambridge, 1720); it contains Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, Evagrius, and the fragments of Philostorgius and Theodorus Lector.
The ancient Syrian writings of ecclesiastico-historical interest are chiefly Acts of martyrs and hymns to the saints (Acta martyrum et sanctorum, ed.
In the West, the first independent history of revelation and of the Church was written by Sulpicius Severus, who published in 403 his Historia (Chronica) Sacra in two books; it reaches from the beginning of the world to about 400 (P. L., XX; ed.
With the same end in view, but with a far grander and loftier conception, St. Augustine wrote his famous De civitate Dei, composed between 413 and 428, and issued in sections.
About the middle of the 6th century, Cassiodorus caused the works of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret to be translated into Latin, and then amalgamated this version into one complete narrative under the title Historia tripartita (P. L., LXIX-LXX).
Together with the works of Rufinus and Orosius, it was one of the principal sources from which through the Middle Ages the Western peoples drew their knowledge of early church history.
In the beginning of the 7th century St. Isidore of Seville composed a Chronicle of the West Goths (Historia de regibus Gothorum, Vandalorum et Suevorum, ed.
[28] Subsequently, with the aid of Latin versions of Georgius Syncellus, Nicephorus, and especially of Theophanes, to which he added his own material, the Roman Abbot Anastasius Bibliothecarius (the Librarian) wrote a Church History to the time of Leo the Armenian, who died in 829.
[31] The Flores chronicorum seu Catalogus Pontificum Romanorum of Bernard Guidonis, Bishop of Lodève (died 1331), may be counted among the works on the general history of the Church.
Venerable Bede wrote his admirable Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, which describes in five books the history of England from the Roman conquest to 731, though treating principally of events after Augustine of Canterbury's mission in 596.
The Scandinavian North found its ecclesiastical historian in Adam of Bremen; he covers the period between 788 and 1072, and his work is of special importance for the history of the Diocese of Hamburg-Bremen.
[36] The ecclesiastical history of Northern Germany was described by Albert Crantz, a canon of Hamburg (died 1517), in his Metropolis or Historia de ecclesiis sub Carolo Magno in Saxoniâ instauratis (i. e. from 780 to 1504; Frankfort, 1576 and often reprinted).
Urged by Philip Neri, he undertook in 1568 the task of producing an ecclesiastical history, which he brought down to the end of the 12th century and published under the title, Annales ecclesiastici (12 vols., Rome, 1588–1607).
Antoine Godeau, Bishop of Vence, wrote a Histoire de l'église reaching to the 9th century (5 vols., Paris, 1655–78; several other editions appeared and the work was translated into Italian and German), and to the Oratorian Cabassut for Historia ecclesiastica (Lyons, 1685).
Among the major ecclesiastical historians of this period are: Noël Alexandre (Natalis Alexander) a Dominican; Claude Fleury, who wrote a Histoire ecclésiastique in 20 volumes, reaching to 1414 (Paris, 1691–1720) as a moderate Gallican; and Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont.
The names of Cardinals Noris, Bona, and Pallavicini, Archbishop Mansi of Lucca, the Vatican librarian Zacagni, Ferdinando Ughelli, Roncaglia, Bianchini, Muratori, the brothers Pietro and Girolamo Ballerini, Gallandi, and Zaccaria, indicate the extent of historical research carried on in Italy during the 18th century.
A third work, of an even more comprehensive nature and reaching to the beginning of the 18th century, was written by the French Dominican, Hyacinthe Graveson, resident in Italy, Historia ecclesiastica variis colloquiia digesta (12 vols., Rome, 1717-).
Compendia of general church history, widely read, were written by the Augustinian Lorenzo Berti (Breviarium historiæ ecclesiasticæ, Pisa and Turin, 1761–8), who also wrote three volumes of Dissertationes historicæ (Florence, 1753–6); Carlo Sigonio treated the first three centuries (2 vols., Milan, 1758), and Giuseppe Zola, treats the same period in his Commentarium de rebus ecclesiasticis (3 vols., Pavia, 1780-), and also wrote Prolegomena comment.
Some special works appeared in Germany, monographs of particular dioceses and monasteries, but general church history was not cultivated until Joseph II had executed his reform of theological studies.
It was some time after the publication of the Magdeburg Centuries (see above) before Protestant scholars again undertook extensive independent work in the province of church history.
This was true not only in the domain of special history, in which they issued important publications (e. g. Bingham's Antiquitates ecclesiasticæ, 1722; the works of Grabe, Beveridge, Blondel, Daillé, Saumaise, Usher, Pearson, Dodwell, etc.
Similarly, the less important Geschichte der christlichen Kirche (9 vols., Ravensburg, 1824–34) by Locherer, rather uncritical and exhibiting the influence of Schröckh, remained unfinished, and reaches only to 1073.
Karl Joseph Hefele is the third of the great German Catholic historians; his valuable Konziliengeschichte is really a comprehensive work on general church history.
Numerous periodicals of a scientific nature bear evidence to the vigorous activity at present displayed in the field of ecclesiastical history, e. g. the Kirchengeschichtliche Studien (Münster), the Quellen und Forschungen aus dem Gebiet der Geschichte (Paderborn), the Forschungen zur christlichen Literatur- und Dogmengeschichte (Mainz and Paderborn), the Veröffentlichungen aus dem kirchenhistorischen Seminar München.
The critical tendency, aroused and sustained principally by Louis Duchesne, continues to flourish and inspires very important works, particularly in special ecclesiastical history.
Balan published as a continuation of Rohrbacher's universal ecclesiastical history the Storia della chiesa dall' anno 1846 sino ai giorni nostri (3 vols., Turin, 1886).