very largely true, but will not, we are convinced, be constrained to
believe with M. Loisy that the historical original of the Christian
Redeemer was the poor deluded enthusiast whom he portrays in 'Les
Evangiles Synoptiques.'
However this may be--and it must remain a matter of opinion--the very
serious question arises, whether it is really natural for faith to
represent its ideas in the form of historical facts when it knows that
these facts have no historical basis. The writers with whom we are
dealing evidently think it is natural and inevitable, and we must assume
that they speak from their own spiritual experience. But this state of
mind does not seem to be a very common one. Those who believe in the
divinity of Christ, but not in His supernatural birth and bodily
resurrection, do not, as a rule, make those miracles the subject of
their meditations, but find their spiritual sustenance in communion with
the 'Christ who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Those who
regard Jesus only as a prophet sent by God to reveal the Father,
generally pray only to the God whom He revealed, and cherish the memory
of Jesus with no other feelings than supreme gratitude and veneration.
Those, lastly, who worship in God only the Great Unknown who makes for
righteousness, find myths and anthropomorphic symbols merely disturbing
in such devotions as they are still able to practise. In dealing with
convinced Voluntarists it is perhaps not disrespectful to suggest that
the difficult position in which they find themselves has produced a
peculiar activity of the will, such as is seldom found under normal
conditions.
We pass to the position of the Modernists in the Roman Catholic Church.
It is well known that the advisers of Pius X have committed the Papacy
to a wholesale condemnation of the new movement. The reasons for this
condemnation are thus summed up by a distinguished ecclesiastic of that
Church[81]:
'Why has the Pope condemned the Modernists? (1) Because the
Modernists have denied that the divine facts related in the
Gospel are historically true. (2) Because they have denied
that Christ for most of His life knew that He was God, and
that He ever knew that He was the Saviour of the world. (3)
Because they have denied the divine sanction and the
perpetuity of the great dogmas which enter into the
Christian creed. (4) Because they have denied that Christ
Himself personally ever founded the Church or instituted the
Sacraments. (5) Because they deny and subvert the divine
constitution of the Church, by teaching that the Pope and
the bishops derive their powers, not directly from Christ
and His Apostles, but from the Christian people.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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