Annales Ecclesiastici consisting of twelve folio volumes, is a history

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

 of the first 12 centuries of the Christian Church

Christian Church

The Christian Church is the assembly or association of followers of Jesus Christ. The Greek term ἐκκλησία that in its appearances in the New Testament is usually translated as "church" basically means "assembly"...

, written by Cardinal

Cardinal (Catholicism)

A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...

 Caesar Baronius

Caesar Baronius

Cesare Baronio was an Italian Cardinal and ecclesiastical historian...

. It was first published between 1588 and 1607 as a response to the Lutheran

Lutheranism

Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...

 Historia Ecclesiae Christi (History of the Church of Christ) in which the Magdeburg

Magdeburg Centuries

The Magdeburg Centuries is an ecclesiastical history, divided into thirteen centuries, covering thirteen hundred years, ending in 1298; it was first published from 1559 to 1574. It was compiled by several Lutheran scholars in Magdeburg, known as the Centuriators of Magdeburg. The chief of the...

 theologians

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 surveyed the history of the church in order to demonstrate how the Catholic Church represented the Antichrist

Antichrist

The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to a leader who fulfills Biblical prophecies concerning an adversary of Christ, while resembling him in a deceptive manner...

 and had deviated from the beliefs and practices of the early church.

Significance

Long before Baronius was appointed Librarian of the Vatican in 1597, he had access to material and sources in its archives that were previously unpublished or unused. He used these in the development of his work. Accordingly, Annales Ecclesiastici is considered by most as extremely useful and complete. The eminent historian Lord Acton

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, KCVO, DL , known as Sir John Dalberg-Acton, 8th Bt from 1837 to 1869 and usually referred to simply as Lord Acton, was an English Catholic historian, politician, and writer...

 called it "the greatest history of the Church ever written."

Critical review

The first volume dealt with Gentile

Gentile

The term Gentile refers to non-Israelite peoples or nations in English translations of the Bible....

 prophet

Prophet

In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...

s, among whom were Hermes Trismegistus

Hermes Trismegistus

Hermes Trismegistus is the eponymous author of the Hermetic Corpus, a sacred text belonging to the genre of divine revelation.-Origin and identity:...

, the supposed author of the Corpus Hermeticum, and the Sibylline Oracles

Sibylline oracles

The Sibylline Oracles are a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters ascribed to the Sibyls, prophetesses who uttered divine revelations in a frenzied state. Fourteen books and eight fragments of Sibylline Oracles survive...

 of Rome. Some Gentile prophets, it was claimed, had foreseen the Christ's birth. This was disputed by post-Protestant Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

 scholars, including Isaac Casaubon

Isaac Casaubon

Isaac Casaubon was a classical scholar and philologist, first in France and then later in England, regarded by many of his time as the most learned in Europe.-Early life:...

in his De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticis exercitationes, XVI.

External links

• Annales Ecclesiastici Vols 1-37 online at Internet Archive