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SUPPLEMENTS

authenticity of a document is to be demonstrated. This might happen by seeking a decision about its official character. Documentary testimonies from an office functioning in an orderly manner will at particular times display definite characteristics. The inclusive concept of all these characteristics at a particular time constitutes what is meant by official character.11 Thus the concept of time lies hidden in the concept of official character. But to the demonstration of the official character of a document, i.e., diplomatic criticism, must be added legal-historical criticism and general historical criticism, i.e., the document in question must be compared to the legal and general cultural circumstances of the time to which it is supposed to belong. For example, the pseudo-Isidorian decrees were proved fraudulent by showing the individual papal letters to be anachronisms. We know that it was Pope Gregory the Great who for the first time used the title servus servorum Dei at the start of his letters. Previous popes already refer to themselves by the same title in the letters in question in the Isidorian collection. We know further that up until the end of the fourth century, popes did not date their letters according to the Roman consuls, yet this happens in the Isidorian letters in question. The decrees supposedly stemming from the first centuries presuppose certain ecclesiasticallegal circumstances that emerged only later. Thus criticism shows that, with respect to their form and content, the letters do not at all display the stamp of the time in which they are supposed to have emerged but rather that of a later time. The scientific use of a source demands that the time of its emergence be determined, because its value as evidence depends on how far it is temporally removed from the historical fact to which it is supposed to be a testimony. The method most commonly used is a comparative investigation into what epoch it is to which the source in question initially corresponds in its form, style, and contentin short, in its total character . . . for each time displays in all its creations and expressions a character which is different from that of other times and which we may well recognize.12 In written sources it is above all handwriting and languagethese most malleable expressions of the spirit of the timethat make it possible for us to determine the time. The concept of time plays a no less essential role in the second main task of the method of history: bringing into relief the context of the facts which are at first individually established. What is initially necessary here is to understand correctly the significance of the particular facts within their context, i.e., to interpret correctly the relevant content of the sources. An interesting example of this comprehensive function of the concept of time in history is offered by Troeltschs recent study of Augustine.13 Troeltsch shows that Augustine was in fact the conclusion and culmination of Christian antiquity, its last and greatest thinker, its intellectual practitioner and peoples tribune. It is from this point of view that he must in the first place be understood.14 On the other hand, Troeltsch characterizes Christian antiquity in its conclusion from the point of view of Augustine. This characterization then makes it possi-