Péter Bods Kirchengeschichtsschreibung im rahmen der Europäischen Kirchengeschichtsschreibung
BOD PÉTER’S HISTORIOGRAPHICAL WORK WITHIN THE FRAMES OF THE EUROPEAN ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY

Summary/Abstract: The appearance of the narrative-critical method was only partially discussed by several historiographies. On the one hand this includes the road from transcendence to immanence, which actually equals with breaking away from the saint-oriented approach that ruled the Western historiography ever since Augustine. On the other hand, it refers to the narrative-critical method of Pierre Bayles, which was originally presented in the Dictionnaire historique et critique (Rotterdam 1695-97), where he closely links the philological criticism originating from the Humanism with the Cartesian method. Jean Bodin was among the first who handed to theology their resignation from history and in his work, Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem (Paris 1566), he claims for the presentation of the connection between humans and their inner world. All the conflicts with history should rejoice at practical necessities. Johann Lorenz von Mosheim founded the modern narrative-critical historiography. He established the basic rules of this discipline, which refer to sources and to different ways how the information was presented. Bod Peter’s (1712-1769) historiographical work was compared to another two ecclesiastical historiographer of the eighteenth century, namely, to Daniel Gerdes from Groningen (1698-1765) and Rosius à Porta from Graubünden (1734-1806) and it was also proofread by other representatives of the eighteenth century historiography. Apart from the brief introductory biographical notes of the above mentioned intellectuals, their ecclesiastical writings were discussed according to the rules set by Mosheim. Regarding their work, we should mainly focus on their presentations. It can be stated that Gerdes, Bod and à Porta, despite coming from various heterogenic areas of Europe, mainly apply the basic rules of the historiography and their presentations are not characterised by the saint-oriented feature. Nevertheless, the limits of ecclesiastical historiography can be found in their works, but these do not influence the historiographical meaning of these writings. Moreover, there are certain examples how science and knowledge ruled the thinking of these eighteenth century intellectuals, which allowed and led to the fact that the eighteenth century changes are primarily referred to as all European developments.

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