Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-08-05

| as most certain.
| "A. The eXegete is not to be blamed for
| constructing premises from which 1t fol-
| lows that the dogmas are historically false
| or doubtful, provided he does not directly
| deny the dogmas themselves.
70. The assent of faith rests ultimately
! on mass of proba blities.
Gagged by Practical Sense.
26. The dogmas of faith are to be held
only according to their practical sense;
| that is, as preceptive rules of conduct, but
not as rules of believing.
| a. The Divinity of Jesus Christ is not
proved from the Gospels but is dogma
| which the Christian conscience has derived
| from the notion of the Messiah
IS Jesus while He was exercising His
| ministry did not speak with the object of
| tea ching that He was the Messiah, nor did
| His miracles tend to prove this.
% 1t is lawful to believe that the Christ
of history is far inferior to the Christ who
| is an object of faith
| 30 In all the evangelical texts the name
| Son of God is equivalent only to Messiah.
| and does not at all mean that Christ is the
| true and natural Son of God.
81 The doctrine concerning Christ taught
| by Paul. John. the Councils of Nicea,
Epheus and Chalcedon is not that which
Jesus taught, but that which the Christian
conscience conceived concerning Jesus.
80 1t is not possible to reconcile the
natural sense of the Gospel texts with the
sense taught by our theologians concern
| ing the conscience and the infallible knowl-
| edge of Jesus Christ
! 3S 1t is evident to everybody who is not
| led by preconceived opinion that either
| Jesus professed error concerning the
| immediate Messianic coming or that the
greater part of His doctrine as contained
| in the Gospels is destitute of authenticitv
81 no to rhricf
a knowledge circumscribed by no limits
except on a hypothesis which cannot be
historically conceived and which IS repug-
nant to the moral sense. viz: That Christ
as man had the knowledge of God and vet
was unwilling to communicate the knowl-
| edge OF great many things to His dis
! cipleS and to posterity
30 Christ had not always the cOnscious-
ness of His Messianic dignity
5t The Resurrection of the Savior is not
properly a fact of the historical order but
fact of merely supernatural order neith-
er demonstrated nor demonstrable 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.
3s. The doctrine of the expiatory death OF
~. The opinions concerning the origin Of
the sacaments with which the fathers Of
Trent were imbued and which certainly in
nuenced their dogmatic canons are very
Inherent from those which now rightly OBJ
tain among historians who examine into
Christianity
~. The sacraments had their origin in the
ract that the apostles and their successors.
sWayed and moved by circumstances and
events, 1ntorDreted {.to
of Christ
Al. The sacraments are merely intended to
orng before the mind OF man the ever
benehcent presence Of the Creator
a. The Christian community imposed the
necessity of baptism, adopting 1t as a nee
essary rite, and adding to it the obliga tons
or the Christian profession.
IS. Inc practice OF comforting baptism on
ln1ants was a disciplinary evolution which
was one OF the causes why the sacrament
was divided into two. viz: baptism and
penance 'N
A. There is nothing to prove that the
rite or the sacrament of confirmation was
employed by the apostles, but the formal
distinction of two sacraments. baptism and
confrma ton, does not belong to the history
or primitive Christianity.
40. Not everything that Paul narrates
concerning the institution of the eucharist
II Cor. Xl:23-23) is to be taken historically
At. In the primitive church the concep-
ton Of the Christian sinner reconciled nv
the authority of the church did not exist.
but 1t was only very slowly that the church
accustomed itself to this conception Even
a1ter penance was recognized as an insti-
tuition Of the church 1t was not called a
sacrament for 1t would have been held an
1gnomfnious sacrament.
A. The words OF the Lord. Receive We
the Holy Ghost. whose sins We shall for
give they are forgiven them. and whose
sins We shall retain they are retained" (John
xx:22,23). do not at all refer to the sacra-
ment or penance. whatever the fathers Of
Trent may have been pleased to say.
4S. James in the Epistle (y:l416 did not
Intend to promulgate a sacrament of
Christ. but to condemn pious custom, and
II In this custom he happens to distinguish
means of grace 1t is not in that rigorous
manner in which 1t was received by the
theolog1ans who laid down the notion and
the number of the sacraments
40 Inc CHRISTIAN supper gradually as
Stunning the nature of liteurgicaI action
those who were wont to preside at the sun
per acquired the sacerdotal Character
Priests or Bishops.
%. The elders who filed the office of
watching over the gatherings of the faith
rui were Instituted by the apostles as
priests or bishops to provide for the neces-
sary ordering of the increasing commune
ties, not properly for perpetuating the apos-
tolic mission and power
81. 1t Is not possible that matrfmonv
could have become sacrament by the new
law until later in the church, for in order
that matrimony should be held as a sacra-
ment 1t was necessary that a full theologi-
cal development of the doctrine of grace
and the sacraments should first take place
81. 1t was foreign to the mind of Christ
TO found church as a society which was
to last on the earth for a long course of
centuries; nay, In the mind of Christ the
Kingdom of heaven together with the end
OF the world was about to come tmmedi-
ately.
SO. The organic constitution of the church
1s not immutab1e, but Christian society.
like human society, is subject to perp etuai
evolution.
o. Dogmas. sacraments, hierarchy. both
as regards the notion Of them and the real
lty, are but interpretations and eyolutfons
of the Christian intelligence which by ex-
ternal increments have increased and per
fected the little germ latent in the Gospe1
%. Simon Peter never even suspected that
the primacy of the church was Entrusted to
him by Christ.
SO. The Roman Church became the head
OF all the churches not through the ordi-
nance OF divine Providence, but merely
through political conditions.
o. The church has shown herself to be
hostile to the progress Of natural and theo-
logical sciences.
So. Truth is not any more immutable than
man himself, since II Ia involved IN him