“ Harnack, both as lecturer and writer, was one of the most prolific and most stimulating of modern critical scholars, and trained up in his “Seminar” a whole generation of teachers, who carried his ideas and methods throughout the whole of Germany and even beyond its borders. His distinctive characteristics are his claim for absolute freedom in the study of church history and the New Testament; his distrust of speculative theology, whether orthodox or liberal; his interest in practical Christianity as a religious life and not a system of theology. ”

“ In this work Harnack traces the rise of dogma, by which he understands the authoritative doctrinal system of the 4th century and its development down to the Reformation. He considers that in its earliest origins Christian faith and the methods of Greek thought were so closely intermingled that much that is not essential to Christianity found its way into the resultant system. Therefore Protestants are not only free, but bound, to criticize it; indeed, for a Protestant Christian, dogma cannot be said to exist. ”

“ The son pursued his studies at Dorpat (1869–1872) and at Leipzig, where he took his degree; and soon afterwards (1874) began lecturing as a Privatdozent. These lectures, which dealt with such special subjects as Gnosticism and the Apocalypse, attracted considerable attention, and in 1876 he was appointed professor extraordinarius. ”