MODERN ERRORS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 37, 12 September 1907, Page 12

MODERN ERRORS

A NEW SYLLABUS

/ from our last issue.) The following is the concluding .portion of .the list of modern errors condemned by decree of the Holy Roman and Universal ' Inquisition :— 35. Christ had not always , the consciousness of His Messianic dignity. 36. The Resurrection of the Saviour is not properly , a' fact of the historical order, but a fact of merely supernatural order, neither demonstrated nor demonstrable, which the Christian conscience gradually derived from other facts. 377 Faith in the Resurrection" of Christ was in the not so much in the fact itself of the Resurrection, as in the immortal life of Christ with God. 38. The doctrine of the expiatory death of Christ is not Evangelical but Pauline. 39. The opinions concerning the origin of the sacra- • ments with which' the Fathers of Trent were imbued, and which- certainly influenced their dogmatic canons are very different from those which now rightly obtain among historians why examine into Christianity. 40. The sacraments had their origim in the fact that the "Apostles and their successors, swayed and moved by circumstances and, events, interpreted 'some idea' and intention of Christ. ** 41. The sacraments are merely intended to bring before the "mdnd of man the ever-Jbeneficent presence of the Creator. 42. The Christian community>. imposed (induxit) the necessity of baptism, adopting it as a necessary rite, and -adding to- it • the obligations of the Christian profession. • 43. The practice of conferring^ baptism on' infants was a disciplinary evolution, which became one of the causes why the sacrament was divided "into two, viz. baptism "and penance. 44. There is nothing to prove that 'the. rite of the sacrament of -confirmation was employed by the Apostles :- but the .formal distinction of the tw,o sacraments, baptism and confirmation, does not belong to the history of- primitive Christianity.

45.' Not everything which Paul narrates concerning the institution of the Eucharist (1 Cor xi. 23-25) is to be taken hist'oricoJly. 46s In the primitive Church the conception of the Christian sinner reconciled bjy the authority of the Church did not exist, but" it was only very ' slowly 1 that the Church accustomed - itself to this conception. Nay, * even after penance was recognised- as an institution of the Church, it' was not called a- sacrament, for it / would be held as an ignominious sacrament. „ - ' 47. The words of the Lord: 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost ; whose sins -ye shall forgive they are forgiven them,, and whose sins ye shall retain they are retained ' (John xx. 22, 23) do not at all refer to the sacrament 'of penance, - whatever the Fathers of Trent .may have , been pleased to say. 48. James in his Epistle (vv. 14 and 15) did not intend to" promulgate, a Sacrament of Christ, hut to commend, a pious custom, and if in this custom he hap- ' pens to distinguish (cerijjt) a" means of grace, it is not in that rigorous manner in which it was received by the theologians who laid down the notion and the number of the sacraments. . 49. The Christian supper gradually .assuming the nature of a liturgical action, those who were wont to - preside at • the ' Supper acquired the sacerdotal char&c^ ter. , 50. The elders who filled the office of watching over the gatherings of the faithful, were, instituted by the Apostles as priests or bishop's to provide for the necessary ordering (ordinationi) of ,the increasing corrv munities, not properly for perpetuating the Apostolic mission and power. 51. It is not possible that matrimony could have become a sacrament of the new Law until later in the Church ; for in order that .matrimony should be held as a sacrament it was necessary that a full theological development . (explieatio) of the ffoctrine of grace and the sacraments- should first take place. 52. It was foreign to the mind of Christ to found a 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 immediately. 53. The organic constitution of the Church is riot % immutable ;. bkit Christian society like human society is subject to perpetual evolution. . . 54. Dogmas, sacraments, hierarchy, both as regards' the notion of them ,and the reality, are but interpretations and evolutions of * the Christian intelligence which by external increments have increased and perfected the little germ latent 'in the Gospel. ' 55. Simon Peter never even suspected that the primacy in the Church was entrusted to him by Christ. 56. The, Roman Church became the head of all the Churches not through the ordinance of Divine Providence but through merely political conditions. - 57. The Church has shown herself to be hostile to the progress- of natural and .theological sciences. > 58. Truth is not any more immutable than • man himself, since it is -evolved with him, in him, "and through him. - • . ' 59. ,Christ did not teach a determinate body of doctrine applicable to all, times and to all men but ' rather inaugurated a religious movement adapted or -to be adapted for different tiiries and places. 60. Christian doctrine in its origin was Judaic but through successive evolutions became first Pauline then Joanmne, and finally Hellenic and universal. ' - 61. It may be said without paradox that there is no chapter of Scripture, from the first of, Genesis to Hwi ■ J t - J e . A POcalypse/ which contains a doctrine absolutely identical with that which" tne Church teaches on the same matter, and that, therefore, no chapter the the P I Ur? SamC SCnSe Jor the Critic " and for nn/fnV^ £? ic . f 4 arliclc ? ?f? f the - Apostolic Symfool . had that «,« \l r lin f la^ °* the - first a S es the sense that they have for the Christians of out time 63. The Church shows itself unequal' to the task of. efficaciously maintaining evangelical ethics; because it obstinately adheres to immutable doctrines which cans not be reconciled with modern 'progress m^S^SS^S °L SMS*? .JLSSrSS ,65. Modern Catholicism cannot be reconciled with Satic SC1 ChrL U i^Tt S *\^ V^°™ed into a nonldogSotestanS lanity '. tbat * lnto a and liberll And on the following Thursday, the fourth day of twSvfnJT th "rtW/an accurate retort of aU tjs having been made to our Most Holy Lord Pope Pius X., his Holiness t approved and confirmed the De-

cree of the Most Eminent Fathers, and ordered that the propositions above enumerated, all arid several, be held by all as condemned and, proscribed. PETER- PALOMBELUf, Notary of the H.R.U,I.