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Title: |
Pascendi Dominici Gregis
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Descr.: |
On The Doctrines Of The Modernists
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Pope: |
Pope St. Pius X
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Date: |
September 8, 1907
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To
the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops and Other Local
Ordinaries in Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See.
Venerable
Brethren, Health and Apostolic Benediction.
1.
The office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord's flock
has especially this duty assigned to it by Christ, namely, to
guard with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith
delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words
and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called. There has never
been a time when this watchfulness of the supreme pastor was not
necessary to the Catholic body; for, owing to the efforts of the
enemy of the human race, there have never been lacking "men
speaking perverse things" (1), "vain talkers
and seducers" (2), "erring and driving into
error" (3). Still it must be confessed that the
number of the enemies of the cross of Christ has in these last
days increased exceedingly, who are striving, by arts, entirely
new and full of subtlety, to destroy the vital energy of the
Church, and, if they can, to overthrow utterly Christ's kingdom
itself. Wherefore We may no longer be silent, lest We should seem
to fail in Our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in
the hope of wiser counsels, We have hitherto shown them, should be
attributed to forgetfulness of Our office.
Gravity
of the Situation
2.
That We make no delay in this matter is rendered necessary
especially by the fact that the partisans of error are to be
sought not only among the Church's open enemies; they lie hid, a
thing to be deeply deplored and feared, in her very bosom and
heart, and are the more mischievous, the less conspicuously they
appear. We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many who belong to the
Catholic laity, nay, and this is far more lamentable, to the ranks
of the priesthood itself, who, feigning a love for the Church,
lacking the firm protection of philosophy and theology, nay more,
thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the
enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, vaunt
themselves as reformers of the Church; and, forming more boldly
into line of attack, assail all that is most sacred in the work of
Christ, not sparing even the person of the Divine Redeemer, whom,
with sacrilegious daring, they reduce to a simple, mere man.
3.
Though they express astonishment themselves, no one can justly be
surprised that We number such men among the enemies of the Church,
if, leaving out of consideration the internal disposition of soul,
of which God alone is the judge, he is acquainted with their
tenets, their manner of speech, their conduct. Nor indeed will he
err in accounting them the most pernicious of all the adversaries
of the Church. For as We have said, they put their designs for her
ruin into operation not from without but from within; hence, the
danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the
Church, whose injury is the more certain, the more intimate is
their knowledge of her. Moreover they lay the axe not to the
branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith
and its deepest fibers. And having struck at this root of
immortality, they proceed to disseminate poison through the whole
tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth from which they
withhold their hand, none that they do not strive to corrupt. Further,
none is more skilful, none more astute than they, in the
employment of a thousand noxious arts; for they double the parts
of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily
lead the unwary into error; and since audacity is their chief
characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they
shrink or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and
assurance. To this must be added the fact, which indeed is well
calculated to deceive souls, that they lead a life of the greatest
activity, of assiduous and ardent application to every branch of
learning, and that they possess, as a rule, a reputation for the
strictest morality. Finally, and this almost destroys all hope of
cure, their very doctrines have given such a bent to their minds,
that they disdain all authority and brook no restraint; and
relying upon a false conscience, they attempt to ascribe to a love
of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and
obstinacy.
Once
indeed We had hopes of recalling them to a better sense, and to
this end we first of all showed them kindness as Our children,
then we treated them with severity, and at last We have had
recourse, though with great reluctance, to public reproof. But you
know, Venerable Brethren, how fruitless has been Our action. They
bowed their head for a moment, but it was soon uplifted more
arrogantly than ever. If it were a matter which concerned them
alone, We might perhaps have overlooked it: but the security of
the Catholic name is at stake. Wherefore, as to maintain silence longer
would be a crime, We must now break it, in order to expose
before the whole Church in their true colors those men who have
assumed this bad disguise.
Division
of the Encyclical
4.
But since the Modernists (as they are commonly and rightly called)
employ a very clever artifice, namely, to present their doctrines
without order and systematic arrangement into one whole, scattered
and disjointed one from another, so as to appear to be in doubt
and uncertainty, while they are in reality firm and steadfast, it
will be of advantage, Venerable Brethren, to bring their teachings
together here into one group, and to point out the connection
between them, and thus to pass to an examination of the sources of
the errors, and to prescribe remedies for averting the evil.
ANALYSIS
OF MODERNIST TEACHING
5.
To proceed in an orderly manner in this recondite subject, it must
first of all be noted that every Modernist sustains and comprises
within himself many personalities; he is a philosopher, a
believer, a theologian, an historian, a critic, an apologist, a
reformer. These roles must be clearly distinguished from one
another by all who would accurately know their system and
thoroughly comprehend the principles and the consequences of their
doctrines.
Agnosticism
its Philosophical Foundation
6.
We begin, then, with the philosopher. Modernists place the
foundation of religious philosophy in that doctrine which is
usually called Agnosticism. According to this teaching human
reason is confined entirely within the field of phenomena, that is
to say, to things that are perceptible to the senses, and in the
manner in which they are perceptible; it has no right and no power
to transgress these limits. Hence it is incapable of lifting
itself up to God, and of recognizing His existence, even by means
of visible things. From this it is inferred that God can never be
the direct object of science, and that, as regards history, He
must not be considered as an historical subject. Given these
premises, all will readily perceive what becomes of Natural
Theology, of the motives of credibility, of external revelation.
The Modernists simply make away with them altogether; they include
them in Intellectualism, which they call a ridiculous and long ago
defunct system. Nor does the fact that the Church has formally
condemned these portentous errors exercise the slightest restraint
upon them. Yet the [First] Vatican Council has defined, "If anyone
says that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, cannot be known
with certainty by the natural light of human reason by means of
the things that are made, let him be anathema" (4); and also: "If anyone says that it is not possible or
not expedient that man be taught, through the medium of divine
revelation, about God and the worship to be paid Him, let him be
anathema" (5); and finally, "If anyone says
that divine revelation cannot be made credible by external signs,
and that therefore men should be drawn to the faith only by their
personal internal experience or by private inspiration, let him be
anathema"(6). It may be asked, in what way do the Modernists
contrive to make the
transition from Agnosticism, which is a state of pure nescience,
to scientific and historic Atheism, which is a doctrine of
positive denial; and consequently, by what legitimate process of
reasoning, they proceed from the fact of ignorance as to whether God has in fact
intervened in the history of the human race or not, leaving God
out altogether, as if He really had not intervened. Let him answer who can. Yet it is
a fixed and established principle among them that both science and
history must be atheistic: and within their boundaries there is
room for nothing but phenomena; God and all that is divine are
utterly excluded. We shall soon see clearly what, according to
this most absurd teaching, must be held touching the most sacred
Person of Christ, what concerning the mysteries of His life and
death, and of His Resurrection and Ascension into heaven.
Vital
Immanence
7.
However, this Agnosticism is only the negative part of the system
of the Modernist: the positive side of it consists in what they
call vital immanence. This is how they advance from one to the
other. Religion, whether natural or supernatural, must, like every
other fact, admit of some explanation. But when natural theology
has been destroyed, the road to revelation closed through the
rejection of the arguments of credibility, and all external
revelation absolutely denied, it is clear that this explanation
will be sought in vain outside man himself. It must, therefore, be
looked for in man; and since religion is a form of life, the
explanation must certainly be found in the life of man. Hence the
principle of religious immanence is formulated. Moreover, the
first actuation, so to say, of every vital phenomenon, and
religion, as has been said, belongs to this category, is due to a
certain necessity or impulsion; but it has its origin, speaking
more particularly of life, in a movement of the heart, which
movement is called a sentiment. Therefore, since God is the object
of religion, we must conclude that faith, which is the basis and
the foundation of all religion, consists in a sentiment which
originates from a need of the divine. This need of the divine,
which is experienced only in special and favorable circumstances,
cannot, of itself, appertain to the domain of consciousness; it is
at first latent within the consciousness, or, to borrow a term
from modern philosophy, in the subconsciousness, where also its
roots lies hidden and undetected.
Should
anyone ask how it is that this need of the divine which man
experiences within himself grows up into a religion, the
Modernists reply thus: Science and history, they say, are confined
within two limits, the one external, namely, the visible world,
the other internal, which is consciousness. When one or other of
these boundaries has been reached, there can be no further
progress, for beyond is the unknowable. In presence of this
unknowable, whether it is outside man and beyond the visible world
of nature, or lies hidden within in the subconsciousness, the need
of the divine, according to the principles of Fideism, excites in
a soul with a propensity towards religion a certain special
sentiment, without any previous advertence of the mind: and this
sentiment possesses, implied within itself both as its own object
and as its intrinsic cause, the reality of the divine, and in a
way unites man with God. It is this sentiment to which Modernists
give the name of faith, and this it is which they consider the
beginning of religion.
8.
But we have not yet come to the end of their philosophy, or, to
speak more accurately, their folly. For Modernism finds in this
sentiment not faith only, but with and in faith, as they
understand it, revelation, they say, abides. For what more can one
require for revelation? Is not that religious sentiment which is
perceptible in the consciousness revelation, or at least the
beginning of revelation? Nay, is not God Himself, as He manifests
Himself to the soul, indistinctly it is true, in this same
religious sense, revelation? And they add: Since God is both the
object and the cause of faith, this revelation is at the same time
of God and from God; that is, God is both the revealer and the
revealed.
Hence,
Venerable Brethren, springs that ridiculous proposition of the
Modernists, that every religion, according to the different aspect
under which it is viewed, must be considered as both natural and
supernatural. Hence it is that they make consciousness and
revelation synonymous. Hence the law, according to which religious
consciousness is given as the universal rule, to be put on an
equal footing with revelation, and to which all must submit, even
the supreme authority of the Church, whether in its teaching
capacity, or in that of legislator in the province of sacred
liturgy or discipline.
Deformation
of Religious History the Consequence
9.
However, in all this process, from which, according to the
Modernists, faith and revelation spring, one point is to be
particularly noted, for it is of capital importance on account of
the historico-critical corollaries which are deduced from it. -
For the Unknowable they talk of does not present itself to faith
as something solitary and isolated; but rather in close
conjunction with some phenomenon, which, though it belongs to the
realm of science and history yet to some extent oversteps their
bounds. Such a phenomenon may be an act of nature containing
within itself something mysterious; or it may be a man, whose
character, actions and words cannot, apparently, be reconciled
with the ordinary laws of history. Then faith, attracted by the
Unknowable which is united with the phenomenon, possesses itself
of the whole phenomenon, and, as it were, permeates it with its
own life. From this two things follow. The first is a sort of
transfiguration of the phenomenon, by its elevation above its own
true conditions, by which it becomes more adapted to that form of
the divine which faith will infuse into it. The second is a kind
of disfigurement, which springs from the fact that faith, which
has made the phenomenon independent of the circumstances of place
and time, attributes to it qualities which it has not; and this is
true particularly of the phenomena of the past, and the older they
are, the truer it is. From these two principles the Modernists
deduce two laws, which, when united with a third which they have
already got from agnosticism, constitute the foundation of
historical criticism. We will take an illustration from the Person
of Christ. In the person of Christ, they say, science and history
encounter nothing that is not human. Therefore, in virtue of the
first canon deduced from agnosticism, whatever there is in His
history suggestive of the divine, must be rejected. Then,
according to the second canon, the historical Person of Christ was
transfigured by faith; therefore everything that raises it above
historical conditions must be removed. Lately, the third canon,
which lays down that the person of Christ has been disfigured by
faith, requires that everything should be excluded, deeds and
words and all else that is not in keeping with His character,
circumstances and education, and with the place and time in which
He lived. A strange style of reasoning, truly; but it is Modernist
criticism.
10.
Therefore the religious sentiment, which through the agency of
vital immanence emerges from the lurking places of the
subconsciousness, is the germ of all religion, and the explanation
of everything that has been or ever will be in any religion. The
sentiment, which was at first only rudimentary and almost
formless, gradually matured, under the influence of that
mysterious principle from which it originated, with the progress
of human life, of which, as has been said, it is a form. This,
then, is the origin of all religion, even supernatural religion;
it is only a development of this religious sentiment. Nor is the
Catholic religion an exception; it is quite on a level with the
rest; for it was engendered, by the process of vital immanence, in
the consciousness of Christ, who was a man of the choicest nature,
whose like has never been, nor will be. - Those who hear these
audacious, these sacrilegious assertions, are simply shocked! And
yet, Venerable Brethren, these are not merely the foolish
babblings of infidels. There are many Catholics, yea, and priests
too, who say these things openly; and they boast that they are
going to reform the Church by these ravings! There is no question
now of the old error, by which a sort of right to the supernatural
order was claimed for the human nature. We have gone far beyond
that: we have reached the point when it is affirmed that our most
holy religion, in the man Christ as in us, emanated from nature
spontaneously and entirely. Than this there is surely nothing more
destructive of the whole supernatural order. Wherefore the [First]
Vatican
Council most justly decreed: "If anyone says that man cannot
be raised by God to a knowledge and perfection which surpasses
nature, but that he can and should, by his own efforts and by a
constant development, attain finally to the possession of all
truth and good, let him be anathema."(7)
The
Origin of Dogmas
11.
So far, Venerable Brethren, there has been no mention of the
intellect. Still it also, according to the teaching of the
Modernists, has its part in the act of faith. And it is of
importance to see how. In that sentiment of which We have
frequently spoken, since sentiment is not knowledge, God indeed
presents Himself to man, but in a manner so confused and
indistinct that He can hardly be perceived by the believer. It is
therefore necessary that a ray of light should be cast upon this
sentiment, so that God may be clearly distinguished and set apart
from it. This is the task of the intellect, whose office it is to
reflect and to analyze, and by means of which man first transforms
into mental pictures the vital phenomena which arise within him,
and then expresses them in words. Hence the common saying of
Modernists: that the religious man must ponder his faith. The
intellect, then, encountering this sentiment directs itself upon
it, and produces in it a work resembling that of a painter who
restores and gives new life to a picture that has perished with
age. The simile is that of one of the leaders of Modernism. The
operation of the intellect in this work is a double one: first by
a natural and spontaneous act it expresses its concept in a
simple, ordinary statement; then, on reflection and deeper
consideration, or, as they say, by elaborating its thought, it
expresses the idea in secondary propositions, which are derived
from the first, but are more perfect and distinct. These secondary
propositions, if they finally receive the approval of the supreme
magisterium of the Church, constitute dogma.
12.
Thus, We have reached one of the principal points in the
Modernists' system, namely the origin and the nature of dogma. For
they place the origin of dogma in those primitive and simple
formulae, which, under a certain aspect, are necessary to faith;
for revelation, to be truly such, requires the clear manifestation
of God in the consciousness. But dogma itself they apparently
hold, is contained in the secondary formulae.
To
ascertain the nature of dogma, we must first find the relation
which exists between the religious formulas and the religious
sentiment. This will be readily perceived by him who realizes that
these formulas have no other purpose than to furnish the believer
with a means of giving an account of his faith to himself. These
formulas therefore stand midway between the believer and his
faith; in their relation to the faith, they are the inadequate
expression of its object, and are usually called symbols; in their
relation to the believer, they are mere instruments.
Its
Evolution
13.
Hence it is quite impossible to maintain that they express
absolute truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the
images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sentiment
in its relation to man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles
of truth, and must therefore in their turn be adapted to man in
his relation to the religious sentiment. But the object of the
religious sentiment, since it embraces that absolute, possesses an
infinite variety of aspects of which now one, now another, may
present itself. In like manner, he who believes may pass through
different phases. Consequently, the formulae too, which we call
dogmas, must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore,
liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution
of dogma. An immense collection of sophisms this, that ruins and
destroys all religion. Dogma is not only able, but ought to evolve
and to be changed. This is strongly affirmed by the Modernists,
and as clearly flows from their principles. For amongst the chief
points of their teaching is this which they deduce from the
principle of vital immanence; that religious formulas, to be
really religious and not merely theological speculations, ought to
be living and to live the life of the religious sentiment. This is
not to be understood in the sense that these formulas, especially
if merely imaginative, were to be made for the religious
sentiment; it has no more to do with their origin than with number
or quality; what is necessary is that the religious sentiment,
with some modification when necessary, should vitally assimilate
them. In other words, it is necessary that the primitive formula
be accepted and sanctioned by the heart; and similarly the
subsequent work from which spring the secondary formulas must
proceed under the guidance of the heart. Hence it comes that these
formulas, to be living, should be, and should remain, adapted to
the faith and to him who believes. Wherefore if for any reason
this adaptation should cease to exist, they lose their first
meaning and accordingly must be changed. And since the character
and lot of dogmatic formulas is so precarious, there is no room
for surprise that Modernists regard them so lightly and in such
open disrespect. And so they audaciously charge the Church both
with taking the wrong road from inability to distinguish the
religious and moral sense of formulas from their surface meaning,
and with clinging tenaciously and vainly to meaningless formulas
whilst religion is allowed to go to ruin. Blind that they are, and
leaders of the blind, inflated with a boastful science, they have
reached that pitch of folly where they pervert the eternal concept
of truth and the true nature of the religious sentiment; with that
new system of theirs they are seen to be under the sway of a blind
and unchecked passion for novelty, thinking not at all of finding
some solid foundation of truth, but despising the holy and
apostolic traditions, they embrace other vain, futile, uncertain
doctrines, condemned by the Church, on which, in the height of
their vanity, they think they can rest and maintain truth itself.(8)
The
Modernist as Believer: Individual Experience and Religious
Certitude
14.
Thus far, Venerable Brethren, of the Modernist considered as
Philosopher. Now if we proceed to consider him as Believer,
seeking to know how the Believer, according to Modernism, is
differentiated from the Philosopher, it must be observed that
although the Philosopher recognizes as the object of faith the
divine reality, still this reality is not to be found but in the
heart of the Believer, as being an object of sentiment and
affirmation; and therefore confined within the sphere of
phenomena; but as to whether it exists outside that sentiment and
affirmation is a matter which in no way concerns this Philosopher.
For the Modernist believer, on the contrary, it is an established
and certain fact that the divine reality does really exist in
itself and quite independently of the person who believes in it.
If you ask on what foundation this assertion of the Believer
rests, they answer: In the experience of the individual. On this
head the Modernists differ from the Rationalists only to fall into
the opinion of the Protestants and pseudo-mystics. This is their
manner of putting the question: In the religious sentiment one
must recognize a kind of intuition of the heart which puts man in
immediate contact with the very reality of God, and infuses such a
persuasion of God's existence and His action both within and
without man as to excel greatly any scientific conviction. They
assert, therefore, the existence of a real experience, and one of
a kind that surpasses all rational experience. If this experience
is denied by some, like the rationalists, it arises from the fact
that such persons are unwilling to put themselves in the moral
state which is necessary to produce it. It is this experience
which, when a person acquires it, makes him properly and truly a
believer.
How
far off we are here from Catholic teaching we have already seen in
the decree of the [First] Vatican Council. We shall see later how, with
such theories, added to the other errors already mentioned, the
way is opened wide for atheism. Here it is well to note at once
that, given this doctrine of experience united with the other
doctrine of symbolism, every religion, even that of paganism, must
be held to be true. What is to prevent such experiences from being
met within every religion? In fact that they are to be found is
asserted by not a few. And with what right will Modernists deny
the truth of an experience affirmed by a follower of Islam? With
what right can they claim true experiences for Catholics alone?
Indeed Modernists do not deny but actually admit, some confusedly,
others in the most open manner, that all religions are true. That
they cannot feel otherwise is clear. For on what ground, according
to their theories, could falsity be predicated of any religion
whatsoever? It must be certainly on one of these two: either on
account of the falsity of the religious sentiment or on account of
the falsity of the formula pronounced by the mind. Now the
religious sentiment, although it may be more perfect or less
perfect, is always one and the same; and the intellectual formula,
in order to be true, has but to respond to the religious sentiment
and to the Believer, whatever be the intellectual capacity of the
latter. In the conflict between different religions, the most that
Modernists can maintain is that the Catholic has more truth
because it is more living and that it deserves with more reason
the name of Christian because it corresponds more fully with the
origins of Christianity. That these consequences flow from the
premises will not seem unnatural to anybody. But what is amazing
is that there are Catholics and priests who, We would fain
believe, abhor such enormities yet act as if they fully approved
of them. For they heap such praise and bestow such public honor on
the teachers of these errors as to give rise to the belief that
their admiration is not meant merely for the persons, who are
perhaps not devoid of a certain merit, but rather for the errors
which these persons openly profess and which they do all in their
power to propagate.
Religious
Experience and Tradition
15.
But this doctrine of experience is also under another aspect
entirely contrary to Catholic truth. It is extended and applied to
tradition, as hitherto understood by the Church, and destroys it.
By the Modernists, tradition is understood as a communication to
others, through preaching by means of the intellectual formula, of
an original experience. To this formula, in addition to its
representative value, they attribute a species of suggestive
efficacy which acts both in the person who believes, to stimulate
the religious sentiment should it happen to have grown sluggish
and to renew the experience once acquired, and in those who do not
yet believe, to awake for the first time the religious sentiment
in them and to produce the experience. In this way is religious
experience propagated among the peoples; and not merely among
contemporaries by preaching, but among future generations both by
books and by oral transmission from one to another. Sometimes this
communication of religious experience takes root and thrives, at
other times it withers at once and dies. For the Modernists, to
live is a proof of truth, since for them life and truth are one
and the same thing. Hence again it is given to us to infer that
all existing religions are equally true, for otherwise they would
not live.
Faith
and Science
16.
Having reached this point, Venerable Brethren, we have sufficient
material in hand to enable us to see the relations which
Modernists establish between faith and science, including history
also under the name of science. And in the first place it is to be
held that the object of the one is quite extraneous to and
separate from the object of the other. For faith occupies itself
solely with something which science declares to be unknowable for
it. Hence each has a separate field assigned to it: science is
entirely concerned with the reality of phenomena, into which faith
does not enter at all; faith on the contrary concerns itself with
the divine reality which is entirely unknown to science. Thus the
conclusion is reached that there can never be any dissension
between faith and science, for if each keeps on its own ground
they can never meet and therefore never be in contradiction. And
if it be objected that in the visible world there are some things
which appertain to faith, such as the human life of Christ, the
Modernists reply by denying this. For though such things come
within the category of phenomena, still in as far as they are
lived by faith and in the way already described have been by faith
transfigured and disfigured, they have been removed from the world
of sense and translated to become material for the divine. Hence
should it be further asked whether Christ has wrought real
miracles, and made real prophecies, whether He rose truly from the
dead and ascended into heaven, the answer of agnostic science will
be in the negative and the answer of faith in the affirmative -
yet there will not be, on that account, any conflict between them.
For it will be denied by the philosopher as philosopher, speaking
to philosophers and considering Christ only in His historical
reality; and it will be affirmed by the speaker, speaking to
believers and considering the life of Christ as lived again by the
faith and in the faith.
Faith
Subject to Science
17.
Yet, it would be a great mistake to suppose that, given these
theories, one is authorized to believe that faith and science are
independent of one another. On the side of science the
independence is indeed complete, but it is quite different with
regard to faith, which is subject to science not on one but on
three grounds. For in the first place it must be observed that in
every religious fact, when you take away the divine reality and
the experience of it which the believer possesses, everything
else, and especially the religious formulas of it, belongs to the
sphere of phenomena and therefore falls under the control of
science. Let the believer leave the world if he will, but so long
as he remains in it he must continue, whether he like it or not,
to be subject to the laws, the observation, the judgments of
science and of history. Further, when it is said that God is the
object of faith alone, the statement refers only to the divine
reality not to the idea of God. The latter also is subject to
science which while it philosophizes in what is called the logical
order soars also to the absolute and the ideal. It is therefore
the right of philosophy and of science to form conclusions
concerning the idea of God, to direct it in its evolution and to
purify it of any extraneous elements which may become confused
with it. Finally, man does not suffer a dualism to exist in him,
and the believer therefore feels within him an impelling need so
to harmonize faith with science, that it may never oppose the
general conception which science sets forth concerning the
universe.
Thus
it is evident that science is to be entirely independent of faith,
while on the other hand, and notwithstanding that they are
supposed to be strangers to each other, faith is made subject to
science. All this, Venerable Brothers, is in formal opposition
with the teachings of Our Predecessor, Pius IX, where he lays it
down that: "In matters of religion it is the duty of philosophy not
to command but to serve, but not to prescribe what is to be
believed but to embrace what is to be believed with reasonable
obedience, not to scrutinize the depths of the mysteries of God
but to venerate them devoutly and humbly."(9)
The
Modernists completely invert the parts, and to them may be applied
the words of another Predecessor of Ours, Gregory IX, addressed
to some theologians of his time: "Some among you, inflated like
bladders with the spirit of vanity strive by profane novelties to
cross the boundaries fixed by the Fathers, twisting the sense of
the heavenly pages...to the philosophical teaching of the
rationals, not for the profit of their hearer but to make a show
of science...these, seduced by strange and eccentric doctrines,
make the head of the tail and force the queen to serve the
handmaid."(10)
The
Methods of Modernists
18.
This becomes still clearer to anybody who studies the conduct of
Modernists, which is in perfect harmony with their teachings. In
the writings and addresses they seem not infrequently to advocate
now one doctrine now another so that one would be disposed to
regard them as vague and doubtful. But there is a reason for this,
and it is to be found in their ideas as to the mutual separation
of science and faith. Hence in their books you find some things
which might well be expressed by a Catholic, but in the next page
you find other things which might have been dictated by a
rationalist. When they write history they make no mention of the
divinity of Christ, but when they are in the pulpit they profess
it clearly; again, when they write history they pay no heed to the
Fathers and the Councils, but when they catechise the people, they
cite them respectfully. In the same way they draw their
distinctions between theological and pastoral exegesis and
scientific and historical exegesis. So, too, acting on the
principle that science in no way depends upon faith, when they
treat of philosophy, history, criticism, feeling no horror at
treading in the footsteps of Luther(11), they are wont to display a
certain contempt for Catholic doctrines, or the Holy Fathers, for
the Ecumenical Councils, for the ecclesiastical magisterium; and
should they be rebuked for this, they complain that they are being
deprived of their liberty. Lastly, guided by the theory that faith
must be subject to science, they continuously and openly criticize
the Church because of her sheer obstinacy in refusing to submit
and accommodate her dogmas to the opinions of philosophy; while
they, on their side, after having blotted out the old theology,
endeavor to introduce a new theology which shall follow the
vagaries of their philosophers.
The
Modernist as Theologian: His Principles, Immanence and Symbolism
19.
And thus, Venerable Brethren, the road is open for us to study the
Modernists in the theological arena - a difficult task, yet one
that may be disposed of briefly. The end to be attained is the
conciliation of faith with science, always, however, saving the
primacy of science over faith. In this branch the Modernist
theologian avails himself of exactly the same principles which we
have seen employed by the Modernist philosopher, and applies them
to the believer: the principles of immanence and symbolism. The
process is an extremely simple one. The philosopher has declared:
The principle of faith is immanent; the believer has added: This
principle is God; and the theologian draws the conclusion: God is
immanent in man. Thus we have theological immanence. So too, the
philosopher regards as certain that the representations of the
object of faith are merely symbolical; the believer has affirmed
that the object of faith is God in Himself; and the theologian
proceeds to affirm that: The representations of the divine reality
are symbolical. And thus we have theological symbolism. Truly
enormous errors both, the pernicious character of which will be
seen clearly from an examination of their consequences. For, to
begin with symbolism, since symbols are but symbols in regard to
their objects and only instruments in regard to the believer, it
is necessary first of all, according to the teachings of the
Modernists, that the believer do not lay too much stress on the
formula, but avail himself of it only with the scope of uniting
himself to the absolute truth which the formula at once reveals
and conceals, that is to say, endeavors to express but without
succeeding in doing so. They would also have the believer avail
himself of the formulas only in as far as they are useful to him,
for they are given to be a help and not a hindrance; with proper
regard, however, for the social respect due to formulas which the
public magisterium has deemed suitable for expressing the common
consciousness until such time as the same magisterium shall provide
otherwise. Concerning immanence it is not easy to determine what
Modernists mean by it, for their own opinions on the subject vary.
Some understand it in the sense that God working in man is more
intimately present in him than man is in even himself, and this
conception, if properly understood, is free from reproach. Others
hold that the divine action is one with the action of nature, as
the action of the first cause is one with the action of the
secondary cause, and this would destroy the supernatural order.
Others, finally, explain it in a way which savors of pantheism and
this, in truth, is the sense which tallies best with the rest of
their doctrines.
20.
With this principle of immanence is connected another which may be
called the principle of divine permanence. It differs from the
first in much the same way as the private experience differs from
the experience transmitted by tradition. An example will
illustrate what is meant, and this example is offered by the
Church and the Sacraments. The Church and the Sacraments, they
say, are not to be regarded as having been instituted by Christ
Himself. This is forbidden by agnosticism, which sees in Christ
nothing more than a man whose religious consciousness has been,
like that of all men, formed by degrees; it is also forbidden by
the law of immanence which rejects what they call external
application; it is further forbidden by the law of evolution which
requires for the development of the germs a certain time and a
certain series of circumstances; it is, finally, forbidden by
history, which shows that such in fact has been the course of
things. Still it is to be held that both Church and Sacraments
have been founded medially by Christ. But how? In this way: All
Christian consciences were, they affirm, in a manner virtually
included in the conscience of Christ as the plant is included in
the seed. But as the shoots live the life of the seed, so, too,
all Christians are to be said to live the life of Christ. But the
life of Christ is according to faith, and so, too, is the life of
Christians. And since this life produced, in the course of ages,
both the Church and the Sacraments, it is quite right to say that
their origin is from Christ and is divine. In the same way they
prove that the Scriptures and the dogmas are divine. And thus the
Modernistic theology may be said to be complete. No great thing,
in truth, but more than enough for the theologian who professes
that the conclusions of science must always, and in all things, be
respected. The application of these theories to the other points
We shall proceed to expound, anybody may easily make for himself.
Dogma
and the Sacraments
21.
Thus far We have spoken of the origin and nature of faith. But as
faith has many shoots, and chief among them the Church, dogma,
worship, the Books which we call "Sacred," of these also
we must know what is taught by the Modernists. To begin with
dogma, we have already indicated its origin and nature. Dogma is
born of the species of impulse or necessity by virtue of which the
believer is constrained to elaborate his religious thought so as
to render it clearer for himself and others. This elaboration
consists entirely in the process of penetrating and refining the
primitive formula, not indeed in itself and according to logical
development, but as required by circumstances, or vitally as the
Modernists more abstrusely put it. Hence it happens that around
the primitive formula secondary formulas gradually continue to be
formed, and these subsequently grouped into bodies of doctrine, or
into doctrinal constructions as they prefer to call them, and
further sanctioned by the public magisterium as responding to the
common consciousness, are called dogma. Dogma is to be carefully
distinguished from the speculations of theologians which, although
not alive with the life of dogma, are not without their utility as
serving to harmonize religion with science and remove opposition
between the two, in such a way as to throw light from without on
religion, and it may be even to prepare the matter for future
dogma. Concerning worship there would not be much to be said, were
it not that under this head are comprised the Sacraments,
concerning which the Modernists fall into the gravest errors. For
them the Sacraments are the resultant of a double need - for, as
we have seen, everything in their system is explained by inner
impulses or necessities. In the present case, the first need is
that of giving some sensible manifestation to religion; the second
is that of propagating it, which could not be done without some
sensible form and consecrating acts, and these are called
sacraments. But for the Modernists the Sacraments are mere symbols
or signs, though not devoid of a certain efficacy - an efficacy,
they tell us, like that of certain phrases vulgarly described as
having "caught on," inasmuch as they have become the
vehicle for the diffusion of certain great ideas which strike the
public mind. What the phrases are to the ideas, that the
Sacraments are to the religious sentiment - that and nothing more.
The Modernists would be speaking more clearly were they to affirm
that the Sacraments are instituted solely to foster the faith -
but this is condemned by the Council of Trent: If anyone say that
these sacraments are instituted solely to foster the faith, let
him be anathema.(12)
The
Holy Scriptures
22.
We have already touched upon the nature and origin of the Sacred
Books. According to the principles of the Modernists they may be
rightly described as a collection of experiences, not indeed of
the kind that may come to anybody, but those extraordinary and
striking ones which have happened in any religion. And this is
precisely what they teach about our books of the Old and New
Testament. But to suit their own theories they note with
remarkable ingenuity that, although experience is something
belonging to the present, still it may derive its material from
the past and the future alike, inasmuch as the believer by memory
lives the past over again after the manner of the present, and
lives the future already by anticipation. This explains how it is
that the historical and apocalyptical books are included among the
Sacred Writings. God does indeed speak in these books - through
the medium of the believer, but only, according to Modernistic
theology, by vital immanence and permanence. Do we inquire
concerning inspiration? Inspiration, they reply, is distinguished
only by its vehemence from that impulse which stimulates the
believer to reveal the faith that is in him by words or writing.
It is something like what happens in poetical inspiration, of
which it has been said: There is God in us, and when he stirreth
he sets us afire. And it is precisely in this sense that God is
said to be the origin of the inspiration of the Sacred Books. The
Modernists affirm, too, that there is nothing in these books which
is not inspired. In this respect some might be disposed to
consider them as more orthodox than certain other moderns who
somewhat restrict inspiration, as, for instance, in what have been
put forward as tacit citations. But it is all mere juggling of
words. For if we take the Bible, according to the tenets of
agnosticism, to be a human work, made by men for men, but allowing
the theologian to proclaim that it is divine by immanence, what
room is there left in it for inspiration? General inspiration in
the Modernist sense it is easy to find, but of inspiration in the
Catholic sense there is not a trace.
The
Church
23.
A wider field for comment is opened when you come to treat of the
vagaries devised by the Modernist school concerning the Church.
You must start with the supposition that the Church has its birth
in a double need, the need of the individual believer, especially
if he has had some original and special experience, to communicate
his faith to others, and the need of the mass, when the faith has
become common to many, to form itself into a society and to guard,
increase, and propagate the common good. What, then, is the
Church? It is the product of the collective conscience, that is to
say of the society of individual consciences which by virtue of
the principle of vital permanence, all depend on one first
believer, who for Catholics is Christ. Now every society needs a
directing authority to guide its members towards the common end,
to conserve prudently the elements of cohesion which in a
religious society are doctrine and worship.
Hence
the triple authority in the Catholic Church, disciplinary,
dogmatic, liturgical. The nature of this authority is to be
gathered from its origin, and its rights and duties from its
nature. In past times it was a common error that authority came to
the Church from without, that is to say directly from God; and it
was then rightly held to be autocratic. But his conception had now
grown obsolete. For in the same way as the Church is a vital
emanation of the collectivity of consciences, so too authority
emanates vitally from the Church itself. Authority therefore, like
the Church, has its origin in the religious conscience, and, that
being so, is subject to it. Should it disown this dependence it
becomes a tyranny. For we are living in an age when the sense of
liberty has reached its fullest development, and when the public
conscience has in the civil order introduced popular government.
Now there are not two consciences in man, any more than there are
two lives. It is for the ecclesiastical authority, therefore, to
shape itself to democratic forms, unless it wishes to provoke and
foment an intestine conflict in the consciences of mankind. The
penalty of refusal is disaster. For it is madness to think that
the sentiment of liberty, as it is now spread abroad, can
surrender. Were it forcibly confined and held in bonds, terrible
would be its outburst, sweeping away at once both Church and
religion. Such is the situation for the Modernists, and their one
great anxiety is, in consequence, to find a way of conciliation
between the authority of the Church and the liberty of believers.
The
Relations Between Church and State
24.
But it is not with its own members alone that the Church must come
to an amicable arrangement - besides its relations with those
within, it has others outside. The Church does not occupy the
world all by itself; there are other societies in the world, with
which it must necessarily have contact and relations. The rights
and duties of the Church towards civil societies must, therefore,
be determined, and determined, of course, by its own nature as it
has been already described. The rules to be applied in this matter
are those which have been laid down for science and faith, though
in the latter case the question is one of objects while here we
have one of ends. In the same way, then, as faith and science are
strangers to each other by reason of the diversity of their
objects, Church and State are strangers by reason of the diversity
of their ends, that of the Church being spiritual while that of
the State is temporal. Formerly it was possible to subordinate the
temporal to the spiritual and to speak of some questions as mixed,
allowing to the Church the position of queen and mistress in all
such, because the Church was then regarded as having been
instituted immediately by God as the author of the supernatural
order. But his doctrine is today repudiated alike by philosophy
and history. The State must, therefore, be separated from the
Church, and the Catholic from the citizen. Every Catholic, from
the fact that he is also a citizen, has the right and the duty to
work for the common good in the way he thinks best, without
troubling himself about the authority of the Church, without
paying any heed to its wishes, its counsels, its orders - nay,
even in spite of its reprimands. To trace out and prescribe for
the citizen any line of conduct, on any pretext whatsoever, is to
be guilty of an abuse of ecclesiastical authority, against which
one is bound to act with all one's might. The principles from
which these doctrines spring have been solemnly condemned by our
predecessor Pius VI in his Constitution Auctorem fidei.(13)
The
Magisterium of the Church
25.
But it is not enough for the Modernist school that the State
should be separated from the Church. For as faith is to be
subordinated to science, as far as phenomenal elements are
concerned, so too in temporal matters the Church must be subject
to the State. They do not say this openly as yet - but they are
forced by the logic of their position to admit it. For given the
principle that in temporal matters the State possesses absolute
mastery, it will follow that when the believer, not fully
satisfied with his merely internal acts of religion, proceeds to
external acts, such for instance as the administration or
reception of the sacraments, these will fall under the control of
the State. What will then become of ecclesiastical authority,
which can only be exercised by external acts? Obviously it will be
completely under the dominion of the State. It is this inevitable
consequence which impels many among liberal Protestants to reject
all external worship, nay, all external religious community, and
makes them advocate what they call, individual religion. If the
Modernists have not yet reached this point, they do ask the Church
in the meanwhile to be good enough to follow spontaneously where
they lead her and adapt herself to the civil forms in vogue. Such
are their ideas about disciplinary authority. But far more
advanced and far more pernicious are their teachings on doctrinal
and dogmatic authority. This is their conception of the
magisterium of the Church: No religious society, they say, can be
a real unit unless the religious conscience of its members be one,
and one also the formula which they adopt. But this double unity
requires a kind of common mind whose office is to find and
determine the formula that corresponds best with the common
conscience, and it must have moreover an authority sufficient to
enable it to impose on the community the formula which has been
decided upon. From the combination and, as it were fusion of these
two elements, the common mind which draws up the formula and the
authority which imposes it, arises, according to the Modernists,
the notion of the ecclesiastical magisterium. And as this
magisterium springs, in its last analysis, from the individual
consciences and possesses its mandate of public utility for their
benefit, it follows that the ecclesiastical magisterium must be
subordinate to them, and should therefore take democratic forms.
To prevent individual consciences from revealing freely and openly
the impulses they feel, to hinder criticism from impelling dogmas
towards their necessary evolutions - this is not a legitimate use
but an abuse of a power given for the public utility. So too a due
method and measure must be observed in the exercise of authority.
To condemn and prescribe a work without the knowledge of the
author, without hearing his explanations, without discussion,
assuredly savors of tyranny. And thus, here again a way must be
found to save the full rights of authority on the one hand and of
liberty on the other. In the meanwhile the proper course for the
Catholic will be to proclaim publicly his profound respect for
authority - and continue to follow his own bent. Their general
directions for the Church may be put in this way: Since the end of
the Church is entirely spiritual, the religious authority should
strip itself of all that external pomp which adorns it in the eyes
of the public. And here they forget that while religion is
essentially for the soul, it is not exclusively for the soul, and
that the honor paid to authority is reflected back on Jesus Christ
who instituted it.
The
Evolution of Doctrine
26.
To finish with this whole question of faith and its various
branches, it
remains to be seen, Venerable Brethren, what the Modernists have
to say about their development. First of all they lay down the
general principle that in a living religion everything is subject
to change, and must change, and in this way they pass to what may
be said to be, among the chief of their doctrines, that of
Evolution. To the laws of evolution everything is subject - dogma,
Church, worship, the Books we revere as sacred, even faith itself,
and the penalty of disobedience is death. The enunciation of this
principle will not astonish anybody who bears in mind what the
Modernists have had to say about each of these subjects. Having
laid down this law of evolution, the Modernists themselves teach
us how it works out. And first with regard to faith. The primitive
form of faith, they tell us, was rudimentary and common to all men
alike, for it had its origin in human nature and human life. Vital
evolution brought with it progress, not by the accretion of new
and purely adventitious forms from without, but by an increasing
penetration of the religious sentiment in the conscience. This
progress was of two kinds: negative, by the elimination of all
foreign elements, such, for example, as the sentiment of family or
nationality; and positive by the intellectual and moral refining
of man, by means of which the idea was enlarged and enlightened
while the religious sentiment became more elevated and more
intense. For the progress of faith no other causes are to be
assigned than those which are adduced to explain its origin. But
to them must be added those religious geniuses whom we call
prophets, and of whom Christ was the greatest; both because in
their lives and their words there was something mysterious which
faith attributed to the divinity, and because it fell to their lot
to have new and original experiences fully in harmony with the
needs of their time. The progress of dogma is due chiefly to the
obstacles which faith has to surmount, to the enemies it has to
vanquish, to the contradictions it has to repel. Add to this a
perpetual striving to penetrate ever more profoundly its own
mysteries. Thus, to omit other examples, has it happened in the
case of Christ: in Him that divine something which faith admitted
in Him expanded in such a way that He was at last held to be God.
The chief stimulus of evolution in the domain of worship consists
in the need of adapting itself to the uses and customs of peoples,
as well as the need of availing itself of the value which certain
acts have acquired by long usage. Finally, evolution in the Church
itself is fed by the need of accommodating itself to historical
conditions and of harmonizing itself with existing forms of
society. Such is religious evolution in detail. And here, before
proceeding further, we would have you note well this whole theory
of necessities and needs, for it is at the root of the entire
system of the Modernists, and it is upon it that they will erect
that famous method of theirs called the historical.
27.
Still continuing the consideration of the evolution of doctrine,
it is to be noted that Evolution is due no doubt to those
stimulants styled needs, but, if left to their action alone, it
would run a great risk of bursting the bounds of tradition, and
thus, turned aside from its primitive vital principle, would lead
to ruin instead of progress. Hence, studying more closely the
ideas of the Modernists, evolution is described as resulting from
the conflict of two forces, one of them tending towards progress,
the other towards conservation. The conserving force in the Church
is tradition, and tradition is represented by religious authority,
and this both by right and in fact; for by right it is in the very
nature of authority to protect tradition, and, in fact, for
authority, raised as it is above the contingencies of life, feels
hardly, or not at all, the spurs of progress. The progressive
force, on the contrary, which responds to the inner needs lies in
the individual consciences and ferments there - especially in such
of them as are in most intimate contact with life. Note here,
Venerable Brethren, the appearance already of that most pernicious
doctrine which would make of the laity a factor of progress in the
Church. Now it is by a species of compromise between the forces of
conservation and of progress, that is to say between authority and
individual consciences, that changes and advances take place. The
individual consciences of some of them act on the collective
conscience, which brings pressure to bear on the depositaries of
authority, until the latter consent to a compromise, and, the pact
being made, authority sees to its maintenance.
With
all this in mind, one understands how it is that the Modernists
express astonishment when they are reprimanded or punished. What
is imputed to them as a fault they regard as a sacred duty. Being
in intimate contact with consciences they know better than anybody
else, and certainly better than the ecclesiastical authority, what
needs exist - nay, they embody them, so to speak, in themselves.
Having a voice and a pen they use both publicly, for this is their
duty. Let authority rebuke them as much as it pleases - they have
their own conscience on their side and an intimate experience
which tells them with certainty that what they deserve is not
blame but praise. Then they reflect that, after all there is no
progress without a battle and no battle without its victim, and
victims they are willing to be like the prophets and Christ
Himself. They have no bitterness in their hearts against the
authority which uses them roughly, for after all it is only doing
its duty as authority. Their sole grief is that it remains deaf to
their warnings, for in this way it impedes the progress of souls, but the hour will most surely come
when further delay will be impossible, for if
the laws of evolution may be checked for a while, they cannot be
finally evaded. And so they go their way, reprimands and
condemnations notwithstanding, masking an incredible audacity
under a mock semblance of humility. While they make a show of
bowing their heads, their hands and minds are more intent than
ever on carrying out their purposes. And this policy they follow
willingly and wittingly, both because it is part of their system
that authority is to be stimulated but not dethroned, and because
it is necessary for them to remain within the ranks of the Church
in order that they may gradually transform the collective
conscience - thus unconsciously avowing that the common conscience
is not with them, and that they have no right to claim to be its
interpreters.
28.
Thus then, Venerable Brethren, for the Modernists, both as authors
and propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing
immutable in the Church. Nor indeed are they without precursors in
their doctrines, for it was of these that Our Predecessor Pius IX
wrote: "These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to
the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it
introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not
the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical
discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts."(14) On the
subject of revelation and dogma in particular, the doctrine of the
Modernists offers nothing new - we find it condemned in the
Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms: "Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual
and indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human
reason"(15); and condemned still more solemnly in the [First]
Vatican Council:
"The doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been
proposed to human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it
were a philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to
the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly
interpreted. Hence the sense, too, of the sacred dogmas is that
which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this
sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound
comprehension of the truth".(16) Nor is the development of our
knowledge, even concerning the faith, impeded by this
pronouncement - on the contrary it is aided and promoted. For the
same Council continues: "Let intelligence and science and wisdom,
therefore, increase and progress abundantly and vigorously in
individuals and in the mass, in the believer and in the whole
Church, throughout the ages and the centuries - but only in its
own kind, that is, according to the same dogma, the same sense,
the same acceptation."(17)
The
Modernist as Historian and Critic
29.
After having studied the Modernist as philosopher, believer and
theologian, it now remains for us to consider him as historian,
critic, apologist, reformer.
30.
Some Modernists, devoted to historical studies, seem to be greatly
afraid of being taken for philosophers. About philosophy, they
tell you, they know nothing whatever - and in this they display
remarkable astuteness, for they are particularly anxious not to be
suspected of being prejudiced in favor of philosophical theories
which would lay them open to the charge of not being objective, to
use the word in vogue. And yet the truth is that their history and
their criticism are saturated with their philosophy, and that
their historico-critical conclusions are the natural fruit of
their philosophical principles. This will be patent to anybody who
reflects. Their three first laws are contained in those three
principles of their philosophy already dealt with: the principle
of agnosticism, the principle of the transfiguration of things by
faith, and the principle which We have called of disfiguration.
Let us see what consequences flow from each of them. Agnosticism
tells us that history, like ever other science, deals entirely
with phenomena, and the consequence is that God, and every
intervention of God in human affairs, is to be relegated to the
domain of faith as belonging to it alone. In things where a double
element, the divine and the human, mingles, in Christ, for
example, or the Church, or the sacraments, or the many other
objects of the same kind, a division must be made and the human
element assigned to history while the divine will go to faith.
Hence we have that distinction, so current among the Modernists,
between the Christ of history and the Christ of faith, between the
sacraments of history and the sacraments of faith, and so on. Next
we find that the human element itself, which the historian has to
work on, as it appears in the documents, has been by faith
transfigured, that is to say raised above its historical
conditions. It becomes necessary, therefore, to eliminate also the
accretions which faith has added, to assign them to faith itself
and to the history of faith: thus, when treating of Christ, the
historian must set aside all that surpasses man in his natural
condition, either according to the psychological conception of
him, or according to the place and period of his existence.
Finally, by virtue of the third principle, even those things which
are not outside the sphere of history they pass through the sieve, excluding from history and relegating to faith
everything which, in their judgment, is not in harmony with what
they call the logic of facts and in character with the persons of
whom they are predicated. Thus, they will not allow that Christ
ever uttered those things which do not seem to be within the
capacity of the multitudes that listened to Him. Hence they delete
from His real history and transfer to faith all the allegories
found in His discourses. Do you inquire as to the criterion they
adopt to enable them to make these divisions? The reply is that
they argue from the character of the man, from his condition of
life, from his education, from the circumstances under which the
facts took place - in short, from criteria which, when one
considers them well, are purely subjective. Their method is to put
themselves into the position and person of Christ, and then to
attribute to Him what they would have done under like
circumstances. In this way, absolutely a priori and acting on
philosophical principles which they admit they hold but which they
affect to ignore, they proclaim that Christ, according to what
they call His real history, was not God and never did anything
divine, and that as man He did and said only what they, judging
from the time in which he lived, can admit Him to have said or
done.
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