Lamentabili Sane
-- Syllabus Condemning the Errors of
the Modernists
Author: Holy Office Under
Pius X
Title: Lamentabili Sane -- Syllabus
Condemning the Errors of the Modernists
Publisher & Date: Vatican, July
3, 1907
Description: Decree issued by the Holy
Office during the pontificate of St.
Pius X.
Lamentabili Sane
-- Syllabus Condemning The Errors Of
The Modernists
With truly lamentable results, our
age, casting aside all restraint in
its search for the ultimate causes of
things, frequently pursues novelties
so ardently that it rejects the legacy
of the human race. Thus it falls into
very serious errors, which are even
more serious when they concern sacred
authority, the interpretation of Sacred
Scripture, and the principal mysteries
of Faith. The fact that many Catholic
writers also go beyond the limits determined
by the Fathers and the Church herself
is extremely regrettable. In the name
of higher knowledge and historical research
(they say), they are looking for that
progress of dogmas which is, in reality,
nothing but the corruption of dogmas.
These errors are being daily spread
among the faithful. Lest they captivate
the faithful's minds and corrupt the
purity of their faith, His Holiness,
Pius X, by Divine Providence, Pope,
has decided that the chief errors should
be noted and condemned by the Office
of this Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition.
Therefore, after a very diligent investigation
and consultation with the Reverend Consultors,
the Most Eminent and Reverend Lord Cardinals,
the General Inquisitors in matters of
faith and morals have judged the following
propositions to be condemned and proscribed.
In fact, by this general decree, they
are condemned and proscribed.
1. The ecclesiastical law which
prescribes that books concerning the
Divine Scriptures are subject to previous
examination does not apply to critical
scholars and students of scientific
exegesis of the Old and New Testament.
2. The Church's interpretation
of the Sacred Books is by no means to
be rejected; nevertheless, it is subject
to the more accurate judgment and correction
of the exegetes.
3. From the ecclesiastical judgments
and censures passed against free and
more scientific exegesis, one can conclude
that the Faith the Church proposes contradicts
history and that Catholic teaching cannot
really be reconciled with the true origins
of the Christian religion.
4. Even by dogmatic definitions
the Church's magisterium cannot determine
the genuine sense of the Sacred Scriptures.
5. Since the deposit of Faith
contains only revealed truths, the Church
has no right to pass judgment on the
assertions of the human sciences.
6. The "Church learning"
and the "Church teaching"
collaborate in such a way in defining
truths that it only remains for the
"Church teaching" to sanction
the opinions of the "Church learning."
7. In proscribing errors, the
Church cannot demand any internal assent
from the faithful by which the judgments
she issues are to be embraced.
8. They are free from all blame
who treat lightly the condemnations
passed by the Sacred Congregation of
the Index or by the Roman Congregations.
9. They display excessive simplicity
or ignorance who believe that God is
really the author of the Sacred Scriptures.
10. The inspiration of the books
of the Old Testament consists in this:
The Israelite writers handed down religious
doctrines under a peculiar aspect which
was either little or not at all known
to the Gentiles.
11. Divine inspiration does
not extend to all of Sacred Scriptures
so that it renders its parts, each and
every one, free from every error.
12. If he wishes to apply himself
usefully to Biblical studies, the exegete
must first put aside all preconceived
opinions about the supernatural origin
of Sacred Scripture and interpret it
the same as any other merely human document.
13. The Evangelists themselves,
as well as the Christians of the second
and third generation, artificially arranged
the evangelical parables. In such a
way they explained the scanty fruit
of the preaching of Christ among the
Jews.
14. In many narrations the Evangelists
recorded, not so much things that are
true, as things which, even though false,
they judged to be more profitable for
their readers.
15. Until the time the canon
was defined and constituted, the Gospels
were increased by additions and corrections.
Therefore there remained in them only
a faint and uncertain trace of the doctrine
of Christ.
16. The narrations of John are
not properly history, but a mystical
contemplation of the Gospel. The discourses
contained in his Gospel are theological
meditations, lacking historical truth
concerning the mystery of salvation.
17. The fourth Gospel exaggerated
miracles not only in order that the
extraordinary might stand out but also
in order that it might become more suitable
for showing forth the work and glory
of the Word Incarnate.
18. John claims for himself
the quality of witness concerning Christ.
In reality, however, he is only a distinguished
witness of the Christian life, or of
the life of Christ in the Church at
the close of the first century.
19. Heterodox exegetes have
expressed the true sense of the Scriptures
more faithfully than Catholic exegetes.
20. Revelation could be nothing
else than the consciousness man acquired
of his revelation to God.
21. Revelation, constituting
the object of the Catholic faith, was
not completed with the Apostles.
22. The dogmas the Church holds
out as revealed are not truths which
have fallen from heaven. They are an
interpretation of religious facts which
the human mind has acquired by laborious
effort.
23. Opposition may, and actually
does, exist between the facts narrated
in Sacred Scripture and the Church's
dogmas which rest on them. Thus the
critic may reject as false facts the
Church holds as most certain.
24. The exegete who constructs
premises from which it follows that
dogmas are historically false or doubtful
is not to be reproved as long as he
does not directly deny the dogmas themselves.
25. The assent of faith ultimately
rests on a mass of probabilities.
26. The dogmas of the Faith
are to be held only according to their
practical sense; that is to say, as
perceptive norms of conduct and not
as norms of believing.
27. The divinity of Jesus Christ
is not proved from the Gospels. It is
a dogma which the Christian conscience
has derived from the notion of the Messias.
28. While He was exercising
His ministry, Jesus did not speak with
the object of teaching He was the Messias,
nor did His miracles tend to prove it.
29. It is permissible to grant
that the Christ of history is far inferior
to the Christ Who is the object of faith.
30. In all the evangelical texts
the name "Son of God'' is equivalent
only to that of "Messias."
It does not in the least way signify
that Christ is the true and natural
Son of God.
31. The doctrine concerning
Christ taught by Paul, John, and the
Councils of Nicea, Ephesus and Chalcedon
is not that which Jesus taught but that
which the Christian conscience conceived
concerning Jesus.
32. It is impossible to reconcile
the natural sense of the Gospel texts
with the sense taught by our theologians
concerning the conscience and the infallible
knowledge of Jesus Christ.
33. Everyone who is not led
by preconceived opinions can readily
see that either Jesus professed an error
concerning the immediate Messianic coming
or the greater part of His doctrine
as contained in the Gospels is destitute
of authenticity.
34. The critics can ascribe
to Christ a knowledge without limits
only on a hypothesis which cannot be
historically conceived and which is
repugnant to the moral sense. That hypothesis
is that Christ as man possessed the
knowledge of God and yet was unwilling
to communicate the knowledge of a great
many things to His disciples and posterity.
35. Christ did not always possess
the consciousness of His Messianic dignity.
36. The Resurrection of the
Savior is not properly a fact of the
historical order. It is a fact of merely
the supernatural order (neither demonstrated
nor demonstrable) which the Christian
conscience gradually derived from other
facts.
37. In the beginning, faith
in the Resurrection of Christ was 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 Pauline and not evangelical.
39. The opinions concerning
the origin of the Sacraments which the
Fathers of Trent held and which certainly
influenced their dogmatic canons are
very different from those which now
rightly exist among historians who examine
Christianity .
40. The Sacraments have their
origin 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 intended
merely to recall to man's mind the ever-beneficent
presence of the Creator.
42. The Christian community
imposed the necessity of Baptism, adopted
it as a necessary rite, and added to
it the obligation of the Christian profession.
43. The practice of administering
Baptism to infants was a disciplinary
evolution, which became one of the causes
why the Sacrament was divided into two,
namely, Baptism and Penance.
44. There is nothing to prove
that the rite of the Sacrament of Confirmation
was employed by the Apostles. The formal
distinction of the two Sacraments of
Baptism and Confirmation does not pertain
to the history of primitive Christianity.
45. Not everything which Paul
narrates concerning the institution
of the Eucharist (1 Cor. 11:23-25) is
to be taken historically.
46. In the primitive Church
the concept of the Christian sinner
reconciled by the authority of the Church
did not exist. Only very slowly did
the Church accustom herself to this
concept. As a matter of fact, even after
Penance was recognized as an institution
of the Church, it was not called a Sacrament
since it would be held as a disgraceful
Sacrament.
47. The words of the Lord, "Receive
the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall
forgive, they are forgiven them; and
whose sins you shall retain, they are
retained'' (John 20:22-23), in no way
refer to the Sacrament of Penance, in
spite of what it pleased the Fathers
of Trent to say.
48. In his Epistle (Ch. 5:14-15)
James did not intend to promulgate a
Sacrament of Christ but only commend
a pious custom. If in this custom he
happens to distinguish a means of grace,
it is not in that rigorous manner in
which it was taken by the theologians
who laid down the notion and number
of the Sacraments.
49. When the Christian supper
gradually assumed the nature of a liturgical
action those who customarily presided
over the supper acquired the sacerdotal
character.
50. The elders who fulfilled
the office of watching over the gatherings
of the faithful were instituted by the
Apostles as priests or bishops to provide
for the necessary ordering of the increasing
communities and not properly for the
perpetuation of the Apostolic mission
and power.
51. It is impossible that Matrimony
could have become a Sacrament of the
new law until later in the Church since
it was necessary that a full theological
explication of the doctrine of grace
and the Sacraments should first take
place before Matrimony should be held
as a Sacrament.
52. It was far from the mind
of Christ to found a Church as a society
which would continue on earth for a
long course of centuries. On the contrary,
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 not immutable. Like
human society, Christian society is
subject to a perpetual evolution.
54. Dogmas, Sacraments and hierarchy,
both their notion and reality, are only
interpretations and evolutions of the
Christian intelligence which have increased
and perfected by an external series
of additions the little germ latent
in the Gospel.
55. Simon Peter never even suspected
that Christ entrusted the primacy in
the Church to him.
56. The Roman Church became
the head of all the churches, not through
the ordinance of Divine Providence,
but merely through political conditions.
57. The Church has shown that
she is hostile to the progress of the
natural and theological sciences.
58. Truth is no more immutable
than man himself, since it evolved with
him, in him, and through him.
59. Christ did not teach a determined
body of doctrine applicable to all times
and all men, but rather inaugurated
a religious movement adapted or to be
adapted to different times and places.
60. Christian Doctrine was originally
Judaic. Through successive evolutions
it became first Pauline, then Joannine,
finally Hellenic and universal.
61. It may be said without paradox
that there is no chapter of Scripture,
from the first of Genesis to the last
of the Apocalypse, which contains a
doctrine absolutely identical with that
which the Church teaches on the same
matter. For the same reason, therefore,
no chapter of Scripture has the same
sense for the critic and the theologian.
62. The chief articles of the
Apostles' Creed did not have the same
sense for the Christians of the first
ages as they have for the Christians
of our time.
63. The Church shows that she
is incapable of effectively maintaining
evangelical ethics since she obstinately
clings to immutable doctrines which
cannot be reconciled with modern progress.
64. Scientific progress demands
that the concepts of Christian doctrine
concerning God, creation, revelation,
the Person of the Incarnate Word, and
Redemption be re-adjusted.
65. Modern Catholicism can be
reconciled with true science only if
it is transformed into a non-dogmatic
Christianity; that is to say, into a
broad and liberal Protestantism.
The following Thursday, the fourth
day of the same month and year, all
these matters were accurately reported
to our Most Holy Lord, Pope Pius X.
His Holiness approved and confirmed
the decree of the Most Eminent Fathers
and ordered that each and every one
of the above-listed propositions be
held by all as condemned and proscribed.
Peter Palombelli, Notary of the Holy
Roman and Universal Inquisition
