# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1857_S274
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

274   Lutheran-Theological Pastor's Library.

...Christian right of judging and exercising judgment upon all things, we cannot here suppress the observation that the papacy is not throughout presented in the Lutheran, that is, the biblical way, as the kingdom of the "right, actual Antichrist," nor the popes as the actual occupants of the antichristian see. If we compare Guericke's work, among others, with the Magdeburg Centuries — that normative work of Lutheran church-historical writing — as regards the spirit that breathes in it, then that observation forces itself upon us irresistibly. — However much historical material Guericke gives in the most compressed brevity, and however excellent the selection of it may be, a Lutheran pastor will nevertheless look in it for many a thing (especially biographical and literary-historical matter) which he does not find, and which Guericke, by reason of the purpose he followed, did not wish to give and, for lack of space, could not give. As a work supplementing Guericke's church history we therefore recommend the following: "Unpartheiische Kirchenhistorie Alten und Neuen Testamentes, von Erschaffung der Welt bis auf das Jahr nach Christi Geburt 1730. — Jena 1735, at J. B. Hartung." 2 volumes in large quarto. This work was compiled by several Lutheran scholars. It was begun and for the greatest part worked out by Joh. Georg Heinsius, who at first lived as a private scholar at Jena, then became gymnasium director at Pirnau, and finally professor at Reval, where he died without completing his work. The church history of the New Testament was thereupon completed by M. Ernst Stockmann, pastor in Ober-Röblingen, that of the Old Testament by Johann Andreas Fabricius, adjunct at Jena. Later the work was continued down to the year 1750, as a third part with a preface by M. Gottfried Büchner, Jena 1754. The first continuation (1730–1736) was furnished by the already named J. And. Fabricius; the second and third (1736–1745) by Dr. Wilh. Fried. Kraft, a preacher in Frankendorf, who was later called to Göttingen and at last to Danzig; the last continuation, finally (1746–1750), was supplied by M. Christ. Wilh. Becker, school rector at Tännstädt,*) and Johann Christoph Mylius, a Jena theologian. The whole work accordingly consists of 3 parts, ordinarily divided into 4 volumes in large quarto, comprising 4506 pages of this imposing format, the extensive indexes not counted. Originally the work appeared (and later repeatedly) in duodecimo; the first little volume under the title: "Kurze Fragen aus der Kirchenhistoria des Neuen Testamentes, nach der Methode Herrn Johann Hübners. Jena 1724." The work has also been translated into Dutch. As regards the form of presentation, the church history both of the Old and of the New Testament is divided according to periods, and these again according to centuries. The history of each century, however, is treated in 7 chapters: 1. of the teach-

*) This Becker also prepared a German-Latin edition of the Book of Concord.