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 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" (De Revel., can. 3).
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 analyse, 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
realises 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.