Abstract

In Schleiermacher's thought, according to romanticism, history and historical evolution can only be understood as the revelation and realisation of an idea within empiric world. At the end of this evolution there will be the identity of Geist and nature, idea and reality. – For Schleiermacher church history ist the middle discipline of historical theology. Between 1806 and 1826 he held three lectures on this subject and made diverse attempts to appoint the relation in which church history stands to universal history and to the idea of knowledge and science.