Excerpt from Manual of the Antiquities of the Church

This being the state of the case with regard to the idea of Archaeology, the question as regards its limits becomes of less consequence. In a scientific point of View, the domain of Archaeology is commensurate with and as little limited as that of the history of the Church's doctrines. Nothing but the factitious limitation of it to ancient times could have given rise to a question as to its boundaries. In the narrower and more exclusive signification, as well as in every other, its commencement is that point of time when the first traces of a peculiar development of forms shew themselves in the Christian Church. Its close, however, has been variously fixed. While Walch and many besides would step with the times of Constantine or the beginning of the fourth Century, and while other writers would with Augusti proceed as far as the middle ages (gregory VII. And. The twelfth Century), a third school, that of Baumgarten, &c. Would bring down their labours to so late a period as even the fifteenth Century. The most consistent course, however, is, to follow the precedent set by most of the Older writers (quenstedt, Bingham, and by the majority of modern ones (rheinwald, Bohmer, and to close the exposition Of Archaeology in this sense with the popedom of Gregory the Great and the sixth Century. For, as we have already remarked, this period contains that basis of the whole development of the Church to which whatever was of later origin attached itself as a mere accident of it; and, moreover, these first six Centuries form in any case the most important period by far of all that our inquiry, taken even in its most extensive range, can be expected to comprise.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.