Such a procedure, then, should enable one to offer a judicious appraisal of the work’s strengths and limitations. Pelikan’s stated intentions: his own identification of the work’s general purposes and of the concept guiding its composition and organization, with special attention to the pivotal notion of “development of doctrine.” To this end I have had recourse to two of his other books, themselves designed as background studies to his magnum opus: Development of Christian Doctrine: Some Historical Prolegomena (1969) and Historical Theology: Continuity and Change in Christian Doctrine (1971). In particular, as fairmindedness requires, I want to examine Mr. To this end I will make a number of comparisons and contrasts with that multi-volumed work that still (a century later) stands as the closest analogue to The Christian Tradition, namely Adolf von Harnack’s celebrated History of Dogma. I propose, rather, to offer an overview of the total work, commenting on some of its most distinctive and impressive features. Many such reviews have already appeared in the professional journals. My intent in this essay is not to provide detailed reviews of each volume. from Chicago in the same year, 1946, at age 23.) No doubt the writing of the five volumes was somewhat slowed by the author’s service as Dean of the Graduate School at Yale from 1973 to 1978. Its original planning and outlining go back to the 1940s, its earliest drafts and sketches to the 1950s-years when he was teaching at Valparaiso University (1946–49), Concordia Seminary, St. Professor Pelikan’s great work has literally been a life’s work. The intervening years-1974, 1978, 1983-witnessed the publication, respectively, of volumes 2, 3, and 4: The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600–1700), The Growth of Medieval Theology (600–1300), and Reformation of Church and Dogma (1300–1700). The fifth and final volume appeared in 1989: Christian Doctrine and Modern Culture (since 1700).
In his preface to volume 1, Jaroslav Pelikan (a professor of church history, medieval history, and religious studies at Yale University since 1962) expressed his hope that the entire project would be completed “within the next decade.” Ten years, however, stretched into almost twenty. In 1971 the University of Chicago Press published The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600), the first volume in a projected five-volume work entitled The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine.
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