The evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1907-1908, 1907-08-06

~ ! 80 o0AAL anu ~ D1AN' 49,
Epheus and Chalcedon Is not that which
Jesus taught, but that which the Christian
conscience conceived concerning Jesus.
81. It is not possible to reconcile the
natural sense of the Gospel texts with the
sense taught by our theologians concern
ing the conscience and thefnfalliole knowl-
edge of Jesus Christ.
80. 1t Is evident to everybody who Is not
led by p~reconceived opinion that either
Jesus professed an error concerning the
immediate Messianic coming or that the
greater part of His doctrine as contained
in the Gospels is destitute of authenticity.
"a. The critic cannot ascribe to Christ a
knowledge circumscribed by no limits ex-
cept on a hypothesis which cannot be his
torically conceived and which is r%epugnant
to the moral sense, viz: That Christ as
man had the knowledge of God, and yet
was unwilling to communicate the knowl-
edge of a great many things to His dis
ciples and to posterlty.
20. Christ had not always the conscious
ness of is Messianic dignity.
81. The resurrection of the Saviour is not
properly a fact of the historical ORDER, but
a fact of merely supernatural order,
neither demonstrated nor demonstrate,
which the Christian conscience gradually
derived from other facts.
Resurrection of Christ.
81. Faith in the resurrection of Christ
was In the beginning not so much in the
fact itself of the resurrection as in the
immortal life of Christ with God.
IS. The doctrine of the expiatory death Of
Christ is not evangelical but Pauline.
SO. The opinions concerning the origin OF
the sacrament with which the fathers OF
Trent were imbued and which certainly in
fuenced their dogmatic canons are very
different from those which now rightly OBJ
tain among historians who examine into
Christianity.
40. The sacraments had their origin in the
fact that the apostles and their successors,
swayed and moved by circumstances and
events, interpreted some idea or intention
of Christ.
A. The sacraments are merely intended to
bring before the mind of man the ever
beneficent presence of the Creator.
AZ. The Christian community imposed the
necessity of baptism, adopting 1t as a nee
essary rite, and adding to 1t the obligations
of the Christian profession.
AZ. The practise of comforting baptism on
infants vas a disciplinary evolution, which
was one of the causes why the sacrament
was divided into two, viz, baptism and
penance.
A. There is nothing to prove that the
rite of the sacrament of confirmation was
employed by the apostles. but the formal
distinction OF two sacraments, baptism and
confirmation, does not belong TO the history
of primitive Christianity.
45. Not everything that Paul narrates
concerning the institution of the eucharist
a.. Cor, XII, 23-25) is to be taken histori-
cally.
ton of the Christian sinner reconciled by
the authority of the church did not exist,
but 1t was only very slowly that the
church accustomed itself to this concep--
NNOAA- 1901 niitA INiAAhNN a
as an institution of the church 1t was not
called a sacrament, for it would have been
held an ignominious sacrament.
~. n words of the Lord, Receive we
the Holy Ghost, whose sins ye shall for
give, they are forgiven them, and whose
sins we shall retain they ore retained
sacrament Of penance, whatever the fathers
Of Trent msv have been pleased to say.
AS. James in the Epistle w., Alb, did
not intend to promulgate a sacrament of
/ Christ but TO condemn a DiOu9 custom.
and IL in this custom he happens to dis
tlnguish a means of grace 1t is not in that
rigorous manner In which 1t was received
by the theologians who laid down the no.
ton and the number of the
AZ. b Christian supper gradually as
Stunning the nature of a liturgical action,
those who were wont to preside at the sup
per acquired the sacerdctal character.
Priests or Bishops.
so. The elders who flied the once of
watching over the gatherings of the faith
full were instituted by the apostles as
priests or bishops to provide for the neces-
sary ordering OF the increasing communi-
apostolic mission aud power
81. 1t is not possible that matrimony
could have become a sacrament by the new
law until later in the church, for in order
that matrimony should be held as a sacra-
ment II was necessary that a full theologi-
ard the sacraments should first take place.
o.; lt was foreign to the mind Of Christ
to found a church nS a society which was
to last on the earth for a long course of
centuries; nay, in the mind of Christ the
klredom of heaven. together with the end
of the WORLD. was about to come immedi-
atelY.
So. The organic constitution of the church
is not .mmutable. but Christian society.
like human society, is subject 10 perpetual
evolution.
"a. Dogmas, sacraments. hierarchy. both
as a the notion of them and the
reality. are but Interpretations and volu-
tons OF the Christian intelligence which
by external inerements have increased and
perfected the little germ latent in the
Gospel.
IS. Simon Peter never even suspected
that the primacy of the church was in
trusted to him by Christ.
56. The Roman Church became the head
of all the churches not through the ordi-
nance of divine Providence, but merely
through political conditions.
81. The church has shown herself TO be
hostile to the progress of natural and
IS. Truth, is not any more immutable
than man himself. since it is involved in
him. with him and through him.
SO. Christ did not teach a determinate
body Of doctrine applicable to all times
and to all men. but rather ~inaugurated n
Religious movement adapted or to be
adapted for different times and places.
Origin of Christian Doctrine.
60. Christian doctrine in its origin was
Judaic, but through successive evolutioas
q II 4 III lAN&AA tAAA 1&At4
finally Hellenic and Universal.
81. 1t may be said. without paradox that
there Is no chapter of Scripture, from the
first of Genesis to the last of Apocalypse,
which contains a doctrine absolutely iden-
teal with that which the church teaches
on the same matter, and that therefore no
chapter of Scripture has the same sense
for the critic and the theologian.
62. The chief articles of the apostolic
symbol had not for the Christians OF, the
first ages the same sense that they have
for the Christians OF our time.
GO. The church shows herself unequal to
the task OF efficaciously maintaining evan
gelicaI ethics because she obstinntely adj
heres to immutable doctrines which cannot
be ~reconciled with modern progress.
Ga. The progress of science requires q re-
modelling of the conceptions of Christian
doctrine concerning God, creation. revela-
ton. Persons of the Incarnate Word, re-
demption.
65. Modern Catholicism cannot be recon-
ciled with true science unless II be trans
formed into a non-dogmatic Christianity:
that is. into a broad and liberal Prot
estantism.
And on the following Thursday, the
fourth day of the same month, an accu-
rate report of all this having been made to
our most holy lord Pope Plus x. his holt
ness approved and confirmed the decree
of the most eminent fathers. and ordered
that the propositions above enumerated,
all and several, be held by all as con-
demned and prescribed.
PETER PALOMBELLI,
Notary of the II. r. u. 1.