PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS

CHAPTER VII

THE MODERNIST AS REFORMER

Q. What remains to be said in order fully to describe the Modernist?

A. It remains for Us now to say a few words about the Modernist as reformer.

Q. Cannot we already discover in the Modernists a marked mania for reform?

A. From all that has preceded, it is abundantly clear how great and how eager is the passion of such men for innovation.

Q. Does this mania for reform extend to many matters?

A. In all Catholicism there is absolutely nothing on which it does not fasten.

Q. What is the first reform the Modernists demand?

A. They wish philosophy to be reformed, especially in the ecclesiastical seminaries.

Q. What kind of reform in philosophy do they desire, especially in seminaries?

A. They wish the scholastic philosophy to be relegated to the history of philosophy and to be classed among obsolete systems, and the young men to be taught modern philosophy.

Q. Why do they wish that modern philosophy should be taught in seminaries?

A. Because they consider it alone is true and suited to the times in which we live.

Q. After this reform of philosophy, what other do they call for?

A. They desire the reform of theology.

Q. What kind of reform do they desire in theology?

A. Rational theology is to have modern philosophy for its foundation, and positive theology is to be founded on the history of dogma.

Q. And as for history, what reform do they demand?

A. As for history, it must be written and taught only according to their methods and modern principles.

Q. What reform in dogma do they want?

A. Dogmas and their evolution, they affirm, are to be harmonized with science and history.

Q. How is the Catechism to be reformed?

A. In the Catechism no dogmas are to be inserted except those that have been reformed and are within the capacity of the people.

Q. And what reform is to be effected in worship?

A. Regarding worship, they say, the number of external devotions is to be reduced, and steps must be taken to prevent their further increase.

Q. Are not certain Modernists more indulgent with regard to ceremonies?

A. Some of the admirers of symbolism are disposed to be more indulgent on this head.

Q. What more serious reforms do the Modernists call for in the government of the Church?

A. They cry out that ecclesiastical government requires to be reformed in all its branches, but especially in its disciplinary and dogmatic departments. They insist that both outwardly and inwardly it must be brought into harmony with the modern conscience, which now wholly tends towards democracy. A share in ecclesiastical government should, therefore, be given to the lower ranks of the clergy, and even to the laity, and authority, which is too much concentrated, should be decentralized.

Q. What further reform do they ask for?

A. The Roman Congregations, and especially the Index and the Holy Office, must be likewise modified.

Q. What reform do they demand in the exercise of ecclesiastical authority in the social and political world?

A. The ecclesiastical authority must alter its line of conduct in the social and political world; while keeping outside political organizations, it must adapt itself to them, in order to penetrate them with its spirit.

Q. And in morals?

A. With regard to morals, they adopt the principle of the Americanists –that the active virtues are more important than the passive, and are to be more encouraged in practice.

Q. What do they ask of the clergy?

A. They ask that the clergy should return to their primitive humility and poverty, and that in their ideas and action they should admit the principles of Modernism.

Q. If they desire to see so many virtues in the clergy, they exalt ecclesiastical celibacy, do they not?

A. There are some who, gladly listening to the teaching of their Protestant masters, would desire the suppression of the celibacy of the clergy.

Q. Seeing that all these reforms are demanded by the Modernists, what question rises naturally to one’s lips?

A. What is there left in the Church which is not to be reformed by them and according to their principles?

 

CRITICISM OF THE MODERNIST SYSTEM THE RENDEZVOUS OF ALL THE HERESIES THE WAY TO ATHEISM

BACK TO CONTENTS

PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS

CHAPTER VI

THE MODERNIST AS APOLOGIST
I. PRINCIPLES AND ORIGINS
II. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF AGNOSTICISM
III. APPLICATION OF APOLOGETIC PRINCIPLES
IV. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF IMMANENCE

Q. We have just seen in what objective way Modernists hope to dispose the non-believer to faith; but is there not also another way, and do they not bring forward other arguments?

A. It is not solely by objective arguments that the non-believer may be disposed to faith. There are also those that are subjective?

Q. On what philosophical doctrine do the Modernists build up these subjective arguments?

A. For this purpose the Modernist apologists return to the doctrine of immanence. They endeavor, in fact, to persuade their non-believer that down in the very depths of his nature and his life lie hidden the need and the desire for some religion.

Q. Is it just of any religion at all that they believe they find in us the desire and the need?

A. Not a religion of any kind but the specific religion known as Catholicism.

Q. How, with the doctrine of immanence, do they claim to discover in us the need and the desire of a super natural religion like the Catholic religion?

A. This it is which, they say, is absolutely postulated by the perfect development of life.

Q. And here, in union with you, Holy Father, what must we deplore?

A. Here again We have grave reason to complain that there are Catholics who, while rejecting immanence as a doctrine, employ it as a method of apologetics.

Q. Do not these Catholic apologists attenuate the method of immanence, and do they desire to find anything else in man than a certain harmony with the supernatural order?

A. They employ the method of immanence so imprudently that they seem to admit, not merely a capacity and a suitability for the supernatural, such as has at all times been emphasized, within due limits, by Catholic apologists, but that there is in human nature a true and rigorous need for the supernatural order.

Q. Are these apologists Modernists in the fullest sense of the word?

A. Truth to tell, it is only the moderate Modernists who make this appeal to an exigency for the Catholic religion.

Q. The moderate ones! What more, then, can the others say?

A. As for the others, who might be called integralists, they would show to the non-believer, as hidden in his being, the very germ which Christ Himself had in His consciousness, and which He transmitted to mankind.

Q. If such is a summary description of the apologetic method of the Modernists, what is to be thought of it?

A. That it is  in perfect harmony with their doctrines.

Q. How may their doctrines be described?

A. Methods and doctrines replete with errors, made not for edification but for destruction, not for the making of Catholics but for the seduction of those who are Catholics into heresy; and tending to the utter subversion of all religion.

CHAPTER VII
THE MODERNIST AS REFORMER

 

BACK TO CONTENTS

PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS

CHAPTER VI

THE MODERNIST AS APOLOGIST
I. PRINCIPLES AND ORIGINS
II. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF AGNOSTICISM
III. APPLICATION OF APOLOGETIC PRINCIPLES

Q. In the facts they allege to prove the Catholic religion, do Modernist apologists meet only with things that are deserving of admiration?

A. While they endeavour by this line of reasoning to prove and plead for the Catholic religion, these new apologists are more than willing to grant and to recognize that there are in it many things which are repulsive.

Q. Is dogma at least, in their minds, free from reproach?

A. Nay, they admit openly, and with ill-concealed satisfaction, that they have found that even its dogma is not exempt from errors and contradictions.

Q. You say that they claim to have discovered in dogma errors and contradictions, and that they proclaim this with pleasure. But do they at least indignantly repudiate such errors?

A. Far from that, they add that this is not only excusable, but, curiously enough, that it is even right and proper.

Q. Do our Modernists discover any errors in our Sacred Books?

A. In the Sacred Books there are many passages referring to science or history where, according to them, manifest errors are to be found.

Q. Having found that in the Bible there are errors in science and in history, how do they seek to excuse Holy Writ?

A. They say: the subject of these books is not science or history, but only religion and morals. In them history and science serve only as a species of covering, to enable the religious and moral experiences wrapped up in them to penetrate more readily among the masses. The masses understood science and history as they are expressed in these books, and it is clear that the expression of science and history in a more perfect form would have proved not so much a help as a hindrance.

Q. What other excuse do they allege to justify the errors which they claim to discover in Holy Writ?

A. Moreover, they add, the Sacred Books, being essentially religious, are necessarily quick with life. Now life has its own truth and its own logic, quite different from rational truth and rational logic, belonging, as they do, to a different order–viz., truth of adaptation and of proportion, both with what they call the medium in which it lives and with the end for which it lives.

Q. But is not that as much as to say that errors become true and legitimate whenever they satisfy the necessities of vital adaptation?

A. Finally, the Modernists, losing all sense of control, go so far as to proclaim as true and legitimate whatever is explained by life.

Q. Can we admit such a legitimation of error in Holy Writ?

A. We, Venerable Brethren, for whom there is but one only truth, and who hold that the Sacred Books, written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, have
God for their Author,* declare that this is equivalent to attributing to God Himself the lie of utility or officious lie; and we say with St. Augustine : ” In an authority so high, admit but one officious lie, and there will not remain a single passage of those apparently difficult to practice or to believe, which on the same pernicious rule may not be explained as a lie uttered by the author willfully and to serve a purpose.”** And thus it will come about, the holy Doctor continues, that “everybody will believe and refuse to believe what he likes or dislikes in them ” –namely, the Scriptures.’

Q. Do our Modernist apologists allow, themselves to be stopped by these condemnations of the Church?

A. No! The Modernists pursue their way eagerly.

Q. What other enormity do they advance with regard to the Sacred Scriptures?

A. They grant also that certain arguments adduced in the Sacred Books in proof of a given doctrine, like those, for example, which are based on the prophecies, have no rational foundation to rest on.

Q. Do they still essay some justification of such errors?

A. They defend even these as artifices of preaching which are justified by life.

Q. More than that?

A. They are ready to admit, nay, to proclaim, that Christ Himself manifestly erred in determining the time when the coming of the kingdom of God was to take place.

Q. They dare to say that Christ made a mistake! But is not that the height of impudence?

A. No! they answer; and they tell us that we must not be surprised at this, since even He Himself was subject to the laws of life.

Q. There we have Our Lord Jesus Christ convicted of error. After this, what is to become of the dogmas of the Church?

A. They say, the dogmas bristle with glaring contradictions.

Q. How do our Modernists claim to justify in dogma these flagrant contradictions?

A. But what does it matter, they say, since, apart from the fact that vital logic accepts them, they are not repugnant to symbolical truth. Are we not dealing with the Infinite, and has not the Infinite an infinite variety of aspects?

Q. But are the Modernists not ashamed so to justify contradictions?

A. On the contrary; to maintain and defend these theories they do not hesitate to declare that the noblest homage that can be paid to the Infinite is to make it the object of contradictory statements.

Q. What must we think of such excesses?

A. When they justify even contradictions, what is it that they will refuse to justify?

* Cone. Vat., De Bevel, can. 2.

** Epist. 28

IV. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF IMMANENCE

BACK TO CONTENTS

PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS

CHAPTER VI

THE MODERNIST AS APOLOGIST
I. PRINCIPLES AND ORIGINS
II. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF AGNOSTICISM

Q. Let us see how the Modernist conducts his apologetics. What does he propose to do?

A. The aim he sets before himself is to make one. who is still without faith attain that experience of the Catholic religion.

Q. Why is he so anxious to produce this experience in the non-believer?

A. Because this, ‘according to their system, is the sole basis of faith.’

Q. How does a man acquire this personal experience of the Catholic religion?

A. There are two ways open to him, the objective and the subjective?

Q. Whence starts the first or objective way?

A. The first of them starts from agnosticism.

Q. What proof does this first way claim to establish?

A. It tends to show that religion, and especially the Catholic religion, is endowed with such vitality as to compel every psychologist and historian of good faith to recognize that its history hides some element of the unknown.

Q. To establish this proof, what needs first to be demonstrated?

A. To this end it is necessary to prove that the Catholic religion, as it exists to-day, is that which was founded by Jesus Christ–that is to say, that it is nothing else than the progressive development of the germ which He brought into the world.

Q. But if Christ brought into the world only the germ of the Catholic religion, what task is laid upon the Modernists with regard to it?

A. It is imperative first of all to establish what this germ was.

Q. By what formula do the Modernists claim to determine what this germ was?

A. This the Modernist claims to be able to do by the following formula: Christ announced the coming of the kingdom of God, which was to be realized within a brief lapse of time and of which He was to become the Messiah, the divinely-given Founder and Ruler.

Q. This germ being thus determined, what, according to our Modernist apologists, must be shown in the next place?

A. Then it must be shown how this germ, always immanent and permanent in the Catholic religion, has gone on slowly developing in the course of history, adapting itself successively to the different circumstances through which it has passed, borrowing from them by vital assimilation all the doctrinal, cultual, ecclesiastical forms that served its purpose; whilst, on the other hand, it surmounted all obstacles, vanquished all enemies, and survived all assaults and all combats.

Q. To what conclusion do our Modernist apologists claim that we must come through duly considering this mass of facts?

A. Anyone who well and duly considers this mass of obstacles, adversaries, attacks, combats, and the vitality and fecundity which the Church has shown throughout them all, must admit that if the laws of evolution are visible in her life, they fail to explain the whole of her history the unknown rises forth from it and presents itself before us.

Q. What is the radical defect of all these reasonings?

A. Thus do they argue, not perceiving that their determination of the primitive germ is only an a priori assumption of agnostic and evolutionist philosophy, and that the germ itself has been gratuitously defined so that it may fit in with their contention.

 

III. APPLICATION OF APOLOGETIC PRINCIPLES

BACK TO CONTENTS

PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS

CHAPTER VI

THE MODERNIST AS APOLOGIST
I. PRINCIPLES AND ORIGINS

Q. According to the Modernists, does the apologist also depend upon the philosopher, and on what grounds?

A. The Modernist apologist depends in two ways upon the philosopher. First, indirectly, inasmuch as his subject-matter is history –history dictated, as we have seen, by the philosopher; and, secondly, directly, inasmuch as he takes both his doctrines and his conclusions from the philosopher.

Q. What, consequently, do the Modernists affirm with regard to the new apologetics?

A. That common axiom of the Modernist school, that in the new apologetics controversies in religion must be determined by psychological and historical research.

Q. How do the Modernist apologists sacrifice to the rationalists the historical books in current use in the Church?

A. The Modernist apologists enter the arena proclaiming to the rationalists that, though they are defending religion, they have no intention of employing the data of the Sacred Books or the histories in current use in the Church and written upon the old lines, but real history composed on modern principles and according to the modern method.

Q. But can it be that they speak thus only as an argumentum ad hominem, and not from personal conviction?

A. In all this they assert that they are not using an argumentum ad hominem, because they are really of the opinion that the truth is to be found only in this kind of history.

Q. Do our Catholic Modernists find it necessary to reassure the rationalists as to the sincerity of their method?

A. They feel that it is not necessary for them to make profession of their own sincerity in their writings. They are already known to and praised by the rationalists as fighting under the same banner, and they plume themselves on these encomiums, which would only provoke disgust in a real Catholic.

Q. Does this praise that rationalists bestow not disgust these Modernists of ours?

A. Far from that, for they use them as a counter- compensation to the reprimands of the Church.

II. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF AGNOSTICISM

BACK TO CONTENTS

PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS

CHAPTER V

THE MODERNIST AS HISTORIAN AND AS CRITIC
I. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF AGNOSTICISM
II. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF VITAL IMMANENCE
III. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF EVOLUTION
IV. TEXTUAL CRITICISM
V. CONCLUSION

Q. How, then, do you sum up the historical method of the Modernists ?

A. We believe that We have set forth with sufficient clearness the historical method of the Modernists. The philosopher leads the way, the historian follows, and then, in due order, come the internal and textual critics.

Q. Since a certain philosophy is the basis of this historical method of the Modernists, and is, as it were, its primal cause, how may we characterize their historical criticism ?

A. Since it is characteristic of the primary cause to communicate its virtue to causes which are secondary, it is quite clear that the criticism with which We are concerned is not any kind of criticism, but that which is rightly called agnostic, immanentist, and evolutionist criticism.

Q. May one, then, make use of such criticism without detriment to the Faith ?

A. Anyone who adopts it and employs it makes profession thereby of the errors contained in it, and places himself in opposition to Catholic teaching.

Q. This being so, what must we think of the praises that certain Catholics bestow on such criticism ?

A. It is much a matter for surprise that it should have found acceptance to such an extent amongst certain Catholics.

Q. Why do certain Catholics allow themselves to be drawn to think so highly of criticism contrary to their Faith ?

A. Two causes may be assigned for this : first, the close alliance which the historians and critics of this school have formed among themselves independent of all differences of nationality or religion ; second, their boundless effrontery.

Q. Do all the Modernists of different nationalities support one another ?

A. Yes. If one makes any utterance the others applaud him in chorus, proclaiming that science has made another step forward.

Q. And how do they league together against anyone who criticizes them ?

A. If an outsider should desire to inspect the new discovery for himself, they form a coalition against him.

Q. To sum the matter up, what tactics do they pursue with regard to such as defend or attack this or that novelty of theirs ?

A. He who denies it is decried as one who is ignorant, while he who embraces and defends it has all their praise.

Q. Is not the result of these Modernist tactics to make fresh recruits ?

A. In this way they entrap not a few who, did they but realize what they are doing, would shrink back with horror.

Q. What has come to pass as a consequence of the audacity of the Modernists and the imprudent thoughtlessness of those who allow themselves to be imposed upon thereby ?

A. The domineering overbearance of those who teach the errors, and the thoughtless compliance of the more shallow minds who assent to them, create a corrupted atmosphere which penetrates everywhere, and carries infection with it. But let Us pass to the apologist.

 

CHAPTER VI – THE MODERNIST AS APOLOGIST

BACK TO CONTENTS

PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS

CHAPTER V

THE MODERNIST AS HISTORIAN AND AS CRITIC
I. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF AGNOSTICISM
II. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF VITAL IMMANENCE
III. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF EVOLUTION
IV. TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Q. If the Modernist historian arbitrarily distributes the documents throughout the centuries according to the pretended law of evolution, what follows with regard to the Sacred Scriptures ?

A. The result of this dismembering of the records, and this partition of them throughout the centuries, is naturally that the Scriptures can no longer be attributed to the authors whose names they bear.

Q. Do our Modernist historians, seeing this consequence, not draw back ?

A. The Modernists have no hesitation in affirming generally that these books, and especially the Pentateuch and the first three Gospels, have been gradually formed from a primitive brief narration, by additions, by interpolations of theological or allegorical interpretations, or parts introduced only for the purpose of joining different passages together.

Q. By what right, in order to explain the formation of our Sacred Scriptures, have they recourse to the hypothesis of successive additions made to a very brief primitive redaction ?

A. This means, to put it briefly and clearly, that in the Sacred Books we must admit a vital evolution, springing from and corresponding with the evolution of Faith.

Q. But where do they find any trace of this pretended vital evolution ?

A. The traces of this evolution, they tell us, are so visible in the books that one might almost write a history of it.

Q. Have they tried to write this history of the vital evolution which, according to them, has governed the successive additions made to the Sacred Scriptures ?

A. Indeed, this history they actually do write, and with such an easy assurance that one might believe them to have seen with their own eyes the writers at work through the ages amplifying the Sacred Books.

Q. To what means have they recourse to confirm this story of the formation of the Sacred Text ?

A. To aid them in this they call to their assistance that branch of criticism which they call textual, and labour to show that such a fact or such a phrase is not in its right place, adducing other arguments of the same kind.

Q. What is to be thought of the assurance with which our Modernists proceed in explaining the formation of Holy Writ ?

A. They seem, in fact, to have constructed for themselves certain types of narration and discourses, upon which they base their assured verdict as to whether a thing is or is not out of place.

Q. Do they push their ingenuousness and overweening conceit to the point of themselves informing us how far they are qualified in this way to make such distinctions ?

A. To hear them descant of their works on the Sacred Books, in which they have been able to discover so much that is defective, one would imagine that before them nobody ever even turned over the pages of Scripture. The truth is that a whole multitude of Doctors, far superior to them in genius, in erudition, in sanctity, have sifted the Sacred Books in every way.

Q. Was the treatment of the Holy Scriptures by the Doctors of old, who were infinitely superior to our Modernists, very different from theirs ?

A. Yes. These Doctors, so far from finding in them anything blameworthy, have thanked God more and more heartily the more deeply they have gone into them, for His divine bounty in having vouchsafed to speak thus to men.

Q. How do the Modernists explain to themselves (ironically] the respect of the Doctors of old for the Sacred Scriptures ?

A. Unfortunately, these great Doctors did not enjoy the same aids to study that are possessed by the Modernists.

Q. What are, in short, these aids to study which the Doctors of old did not possess, but which the Modernists do enjoy ?

A. They did not have for their rule and guide a philosophy borrowed from the negation of God, and a criterion which consists of themselves.

 

V. CONCLUSION

BACK TO CONTENTS

PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS

CHAPTER V

THE MODERNIST AS HISTORIAN AND AS CRITIC
I. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF AGNOSTICISM
II. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF VITAL IMMANENCE
III. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF EVOLUTION

Q. After the classification of the documents according to the date of their origin arbitrarily determined upon, is there not another operation undertaken by the critic ? What distinction necessitates, in the, eyes of the Modernist critic, this new operation ?

A. Further, a distinction must be made between the beginning of a fact and its development, for what is born in one day requires time for growth.

Q. In virtue of this distinction between the origin of a fact and its development, what new partition does the Modernist critic make of his documents ?

A. The critic must once more go over his documents, ranged as they are through the different ages, and divide them again into two parts, separating those that regard the origin of the facts from those that deal with their development.

Q. What does he do with the documents that have reference to the development of a fact ?

A. These he must again arrange according to their periods.

Q. What principle will direct him in determining this arrangement ?

A. The philosopher must come in again.

Q. What is the purpose of the principle which, according to the Modernist philosopher, dominates and governs history ?

A. To enjoin upon the historian the obligation of following in all his studies the precepts and laws of evolution.

Q. How, then, will the Modernist historian, armed with the law of evolution, treat the history of the Church ?

A. It is next for the historian to scrutinize his documents once more, to examine carefully the circumstances and conditions affecting the Church during the different periods, the conserving force she has put forth, the needs both internal and external that have stimulated her to progress, the obstacles she has had to encounter.

Q. In a word, what does the Modernist historian seek for in the documents of the history of the Church ?

A. In a word, everything that helps to determine the manner in which the laws of evolution have been fulfilled in her.

Q. After this attentive examination to discover in the history of the Church the law of her evolution, what does the historian do ?

A. This done, he finishes his work by drawing up a history of the development in its broad lines.

Q. What is the final operation that of the Modernist critic once he has, traced out for him thus, this fantastic outline of the history of the Church ?

A. The critic follows and fits in the rest of the documents. He sets himself to write. The history is finished.

Q. Since the Modernist historian and critic allow themselves to be thus dominated by the principles of the philosopher, We ask here : Who is the author of this history ? The historian ? The critic ?

A. Assuredly neither of these, but the philosopher.

Q. Why the philosopher ?

A. Because from beginning to end everything in it is a priori.

Q. And what kind of a priori ?

A. An apriorism that reeks of heresy.

Q. Are such historians not to be pitied ?

A. These men are certainly to be pitied, of whom the Apostle might well say, ” They became vain in their thoughts . . . professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”  (Rom 1: 21,22)

Q. But if these Modernist historians excite our pity, do they not also rouse us, and very justly, to indignation ?

A. At the same time they excite resentment when they accuse the Church of arranging and confusing the texts after her own fashion, and for the needs of her cause.

Q. What sentiment moves them to accuse the Church of torturing the texts ?

A. They are accusing the Church of something for which their own conscience plainly reproaches them.

 

IV. TEXTUAL CRITICISM

BACK TO CONTENTS

PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS

CHAPTER V

THE MODERNIST AS HISTORIAN AND AS CRITIC
I. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF AGNOSTICISM
II. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF VITAL IMMANENCE

Q. Is the dominion of philosophy over history confined to prescribing to the critic the division of documents into two parts-documents serving for the history of Faith and documents serving for real history ?

A. The dominion of philosophy over history does not end here.

Q. After this division of documents into two lots, in the name of agnosticism, what other principle of Modernist philosophy makes a fresh appearance, to rule the critic ?

A. Given that division, of which We have spoken, of the documents into two parts, the philosopher steps in again with his dogma of vital immanence.

Q. What importance, for the Modernist critic, has this principle of vital immanence ?

A. It shows how everything in the history of the Church is to be explained by vital emanation?

Q. How, according to this principle, are facts which are but an emanation of life subordinated to the immanent need from which they emanate ?

A. Since the cause or condition of every vital emanation whatsoever is to be found in some need or want, it follows that no fact can be regarded as antecedent to the need which produced it historically the fact must be posterior to the need.

Q. What, then, does the historian in view of this principle ? How does the Modernist historian proceed in the history of the Church ?

A. He goes over his documents again, whether they be contained in the Sacred Books or elsewhere, draws up from them his list of the particular needs of the Church, whether relating to dogma, or liturgy, or other matters which are found in the Church thus related.

Q. Once this list has been drawn up, what does he do with it ?

A. Then he hands his list over to the critic.

Q. Aided by this list of the successive needs of the Church, what operation does the critic make the documents of the history of Faith undergo ?

A. The critic takes in hand the documents dealing with the history of Faith, and distributes them, period by period, so that they correspond exactly with the list of needs, always guided by the principle that the narration must follow the facts, as the facts follow the needs.

Q. Does it not happen at times that certain parts of the Sacred Scriptures, instead of simply revealing a need, are themselves the fact created by the need ?

A. It may at times happen that some parts of the Sacred Scriptures, such as the Epistles, themselves constitute the fact created by the need.

Q. But, whatever may be the case with regard to these exceptions, what, in a general way, is the rule which serves to determine the date of origin of the documents of ecclesiastical history ?

A. The rule holds that the age of any document can only be determined by the age in which each need has manifested itself in the Church.

 

III. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF EVOLUTION

BACK TO CONTENTS

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.

 

II. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF VITAL IMMANENCE

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