PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS
CHAPTER V
THE MODERNIST AS HISTORIAN AND AS CRITIC
I. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF AGNOSTICISM
Q. We have studied the Modernist as philosopher, believer, and theologian. What remains to be considered ?
A. It now remains for us to consider him as historian, critic, apologist, and reformer.
Q. What do certain Modernists, devoted to historical studies, seem to fear?
A. Some Modernists, devoted to historical studies, seem to be deeply anxious not to be taken for philosophers.
Q. What do they tell us as to their competence in philosophy?
A. About philosophy they profess to know nothing whatever.
Q. Is this profession of ignorance sincere?
A. No. In this they display remarkable astuteness.
Q. Why, then, do the Modernist historians pretend to be ignorant of philosophy?
A. They are particularly desirous not to be suspected of any prepossession in favour of philosophical theories which would lay them open to the charge of not being, as they call it, objective.
Q. Do the Modernist historians, in spite of their assertions to the contrary, really allow themselves to be influenced by philosophical systems?
A. The truth is that their history and their criticism are saturated with their philosophy, and that their historico-critical conclusions are the natural outcome of their philosophical principles. This will be patent to anyone who reflects.
Q. What are the three philosophical principles from which the Modernist historians deduce the three laws of history ?
A. Their three first laws are contained in those three principles of their philosophy already dealt with : the principle of agnosticism, the theorem of the transfiguration of things by faith, and that other which may be called the principle of disfiguration.
Q. According to the Modernists, what historical law follows from the philosophical principle of agnosticism ?
A. Agnosticism tells us that history, like science, deals entirely with phenomena.
Q. What conclusion directly follows from this first historical law deduced from agnosticism ?
A. 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.
Q. If in history are found things in which the divine and the human intermingle, what will be the Modernises manner of dealing with them ?
A. In things where there is combined a double element, the divine and the human as, for example, in Christ, or the Church, or the Sacraments, or the many other objects of the same kind a division and separation must be made, and the human element must be left to history while the divine will be assigned to faith.
Q. Must we, then, distinguish between two kinds of Christ, two kinds of Church, and so on ?
A. Yes. Hence we have that distinction, so current among the Modernists, between the Christ of history and the Christ of Faith ; the Church of history and the Church of Faith ; the Sacraments of history and the Sacraments of Faith ; and so in similar matters.
Q. Relatively to this human element, which is the only one agnosticism allows to be matter for history, what does the second philosophical principle tell us / mean the principle of transfiguration which is the inspiration of the Modernist historian ?
A. We find that the human element itself, which the historian has to work on, as it appears in the documents, is to be considered as having been transfigured by Faith that is to say, raised above its historical conditions.
Q. What, then, in virtue of this principle of transfiguration, is the second law that governs Modernist history ?
A. It becomes necessary, therefore, to eliminate also the accretions which Faith has added, to relegate them to Faith itself and to the history of Faith.
Q. Consequently, what are the things which a Modernist historian will eliminate from the history of Christ ?
A. Thus, when treating of Christ, the historian must set aside all that surpasses man in his natural condition, according to what psychology tells us of him, or according to what we gather from the place and period of his existence.
Q. What is the third law which the Modernist historian imposes upon himself in virtue of the philosophical principle catted disfiguration ?
A. Finally, they require, by virtue of the third principle, that even those things which are not outside the sphere of history should pass through the sieve, excluding all, and relegating to faith everything which, in their judgment, is not in harmony with what they call the logic of facts, or not in character with the persons of whom they are predicated.
Q. What conclusion do they deduce from this third law with regard to the words which the Evangelists attribute to our Divine Lord ?
A. 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.
Q. We may, peradventure, inquire on what principles they make these divisions. Will they tell us ?
A. Their reply is that they argue from the character of the man, from his condition of life, from his education, from the complexus of the circumstances under which the facts took place.
Q. Is that an objective criterion and such as serious history demands ?
A. If We understand them aright, they argue on a principle which in the last analysis is merely subjective.
Q. Can you prove that that is a merely subjective criterion ?
A. It is proved by this. 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.
Q. How, in virtue of the three philosophical principles which, according to them, govern history, do the Modernists treat Christ, Our Lord ?
A. Absolutely a priori, and acting on philosophical principles which they hold, but which they profess to ignore, they proclaim that Christ, according to what they call His real history, was not God, and never did anything divine.
Q. Having eliminated entirely the divine character of Christ from real history, do they at least leave intact Christ as Man ?
A. As Man He did and said only what they, judging from the time in which He lived, consider that He ought to have said or done.
Q. How, according to the Modernists, do philosophy, history, and criticism stand in relation to one another ?
A. As history takes its conclusions from philosophy, so, too, criticism takes its conclusions from history.
Q. How does the Modernist critic treat the documents on which he works ?
A. The critic, on the data furnished him by the historian, makes two parts of all his documents. Those that remain after the triple elimination above described go to form the real history ; the rest is attributed to the history of Faith, or, as it is styled, to internal history.
Q. Are there, then, according to the Modernists, two kinds of history : the history of Faith and real history ?
A. Yes. The Modernists distinguish very carefully between these two kinds of history.
Q. Then, is not the history of Faith, as the Modernists call it, true history according to them ?
A. It is to be noted that they oppose the history of Faith to real history precisely as real.
Q. If the history of Faith is not real history, what do the Modernists say on the subject of the twofold Christ mentioned above ?
A. As We have already said, we have a twofold Christ a real Christ, and a Christ, the one of Faith, who never really existed ; a Christ who has lived at a given time and in a given place, and a Christ who has never lived outside the pious meditations of the believer.
Q. Where is this Christ of Faith, this Christ who is not real according to the Modernists where especially is He portrayed ?
A. The Christ, for instance, whom we find in the Gospel of St. John.
Q. What, then, in the opinion of the Modernists, is the Gospel of St. John ?
A. Mere meditation from beginning to end.