Heuser, H. J.
The syllabus, its meaning and purpose.
Philadelphia, 1907

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TKe Syllabus

Its Meaning' and Purpose
By tKe Rev. H. J. Heuser

Copies may be Had on application to tH<
Superintendent of Parish Schools
Broad and "Vine Streets
Philadelphia

Educational Briefs

No. 20 October. 1907

Hnj76 H4?

American Ecclesiastical Review
The Dolphin Press
1305 Arch Street, Philadelphia

TKe New Syllabus
Decree of the Holy Roman and Universal
Inquisition, 3 July, 1907
¥¥¥
WITH result truly deplorable our age, im
patient of a curb, in investigating the
ultimate causes of things, often so follows
novelty that, casting aside, as it were, the inheri
tance of the human race, it falls into the most
serious errors. These errors will be far more
baneful if sacred studies, the interpretation of
Sacred Scripture and the principal mysteries of
the Faith, are in question. It is, too, greatly to
be regretted that even amongst Catholics are to
be found writers not so few who, passing beyond
limits laid down by the Fathers and by Holy
Church herself, with a pretence of higher intel
ligence and in the name of historical examination,
seek for that progress in dogmas which is in
reality their corruption.
Lest errors of this kind, which are daily spread
amongst the Faithful, should take root in their
souls and corrupt the purity of the Faith, it has
pleased the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius X, by Divine
Providence Pope, that the chief amongst them
should be pointed out and condemned through
3

THE NEW SYLLABUS

this office of the Holy Roman and Universal In
quisition. Wherefore, a diligent examination having been
made and the opinion of the Rev. Consultors
having been taken, the Cardinals, General Inquis
itors on questions of faith and morals, have de
cided that the following propositions should be
denounced and proscribed, as they are denounced
and proscribed by this general Decree :
i. The ecclesiastical law which prescribes that
books concerning the Divine Scriptures are to be
submitted to previous censorship does not apply
to those engaged in criticism or scientific exegesis
of the Old and New Testament.
2. The Church's interpretation of the Sacred
Books is not to be despised, but it is subject to
the more accurate judgment and correction of
exegetes. 3. From the ecclesiastical decisions and cen
sures directed against free and more cultured
exegesis it may be inferred that the faith set
forth by the Church contradicts history, and that
the Catholic dogmas cannot, in fact, be reconciled
with the truer origins of the Christian religion.
4. The Magisterium of the Church cannot de
termine the proper sense of the Sacred Scrip
tures by dogmatic definitions.
5. As only revealed truths are contained in the
deposit of the Faith, it is by no means within
the province of the Church to pass judgment on
the statements of human sciences.
6. In defining truths, the learning and the
4

THE NEW SYLLABUS

teaching Church so cooperate that nothing re
mains for the teaching Church except to sanc
tion the common opinions of the learning Church.
7. When the Church prescribes errors, it can
not exact from the faithful any internal assent
embracing the decisions published by it.
8. They are to be considered quite free from
fault who attach no importance to the condem
nation pronounced by the Sacred Congregation
of the Index or other Sacred Roman Congrega
tions. 9. They are obviously too simple or too ignor
ant who believe that God is the author of the
Sacred Scripture.
10. The inspiration of the books of the Old
Testament consists in this, that the Jewish writ
ers handed down religious doctrines under a cer
tain peculiar form little known, or unknown to
the Gentiles.
11. Divine inspiration does not so extend to
the whole of the Sacred Scriptures as to secure
all and each of the parts from every error.
12. The exegete, if he wishes to apply himself
usefully to Biblical studies, should put aside every
preconceived opinion on the supernatural origin
of the Sacred Scripture, and should interpret not
otherwise than he would other merely human
documents. 13. The Evangelists themselves and the Chris
tians of the second and third generation took the
Gospel parables in an artificial sense, and thus
gave occasion for the slight fruit of the preach
ing of Christ amongst the Jews.
5

THE NEW SYLLABUS

14. In many narratives the Evangelists related
not so much what is true as what they thought
would, although false, prove rather serviceable to
the readers.
15. Under the Canon was defined and estab
lished the Gospels which increased by constant
additions and corrections ; therefore only a slight
and uncertain trace of the doctrine of Christ re
mained in them.
16. John's narratives are not properly history,
but a mystic contemplation of the Gospel; the
sermons contained in his Gospel are theological
meditations about the mystery of salvation de
void of historic truth.
17. The fourth Gospel exaggerated the mir
acles not only that they should appear more ex
traordinary, but also that they might be better
suited for attesting the work and the glory of the
Word Incarnate.
18. John, no doubt, shows that he bears the
character of a witness to Christ; but in reality
he is only an excellent witness to the Christian
life, or the life of Christ in the Church at the
end of the first century.
19. The heterodox exegetes have given the
true sense of the Scriptures more faithfully than
the Catholic exegetes.
20. Revelation can be nothing else but the con
sciousness acquired by man of his relationship
to God.
21. The Revelation which is the object of Cath
olic faith was not completed with the Apostles.
6

THE NEW SYLLABUS

22. The dogmas which the Church puts for
ward as revealed are not truths that have come
down from heaven, but a certain interpretation
of religious facts which the human mind has
secured by laborious effort.
23. There can and does actually exist oppo
sition between the facts which are related in the
Holy Scripture and the dogmas of the Church
that depend on them; so that a critic may reject
as false facts which the Church believes to be
most certain.
24. The exegete is not to be blamed who lays
down premises from which it follows that dog
mas are historically false or doubtful, provided
that he does not directly deny the dogmas them
selves. 25. The assent of faith ultimately rests on a
heap of probabilities.
26. The dogmas of the Faith are to be held
according to their practical sense — that is to say,
as a preceptive rule of action, not as a standard
of belief.
27. The Divinity of Jesus Christ is not proved
from the Gospels, but is a dogma which the
Christian conscience has deduced from the no
tion of the Messias.
28. When He exercised His ministry Jesus did
not speak with a view to teaching that He was
the Messias, nor were His miracles intended to
show this.
29. It may be granted that the Christ whom
history presents is much inferior to the Christ
who is the object of faith. 7

THE NEW SYLLABUS

30. In the Gospel texts the name Son of God
is only equivalent to the name Messias; it by no
means signifies that Christ is the true and nat
ural Son of God.
31. The teaching concerning Christ which Paul,
John, and the Councils of Nicaea, Ephesus, and
Chalcedon hand down is not that which Jesus
taught, but what the Christian conscience con
ceived with regard to Jesus.
32. The natural sense of the Gospel texts can
not be reconciled with what our theologians teach
as to the conscience and infallible knowledge of
Jesus Christ.
33. It is evident to every one who is not led
by preconceived opinions either that Jesus taught
error concerning the approaching advent of the
Messias or that the greater part of His doctrine
contained in the Synoptic Gospels is devoid of
authenticity. 34. The critic cannot ascribe to Christ knowl
edge without limit except on the hypothesis,
which cannot be conceived historically and which
is repugnant to the moral sense, that Christ as
man had the knowledge of God and yet was not
willing to make His disciples and posterity ac
quainted with so many things.
35. Christ had not always the consciousness of
His Messianic dignity.
36. The Resurrection is not properly a fact of
the historical order, neither proved nor provable,
which the Christian conscience gradually inferred
from other facts. 8

THE NEW SYLLABUS

37. Faith in the Resurrection of Christ was
concerned at the beginning not so much with the
fact of the Resurrection itself as with the im
mortal life of Christ with God.
38. The doctrine on the expiatory death of
Christ is not Evangelical, but only Pauline.
39. The opinions on the origin of the Sacra
ments with which the Tridentine Fathers were
imbued, and which undoubtedly had an influence
on their dogmatic Canons, are far different from
those which now rightly prevail amongst histor
ical investigators of Christianity.
40. The origin of the Sacraments is due to the
fact that the Apostles and their successors inter
preted some idea and intention of Christ under
the movement and influence of circumstances and
events. 41. The Sacraments have no other object than
to bring to man's remembrance the ever-benefi
cent presence of the Creator.
42. The Christian community introduced the
necessity of baptism, adopting it as a necessary
rite and associating it with the obligations of the
Christian profession.
43. The custom of baptizing children was a
disciplinary development which was one of the
causes why the Sacrament was divided into two
— Baptism and Penance.
44. There is no proof that the rite of the Sac
rament of Confirmation was employed by the
Apostles; the formal distinction, therefore, be
tween the two Sacraments — Baptism and Con-
9

THE NEW SYLLABUS

firmation — does not belong to the history of
primitive Christianity.
45. Not all that Paul relates concerning the
institution of the Eucharist (I Cor. xi, 23-25) is
to be accepted as historical.
46. The conception of a Christian as a sinner
reconciled by the authority of the Church did
not exist in the primitive Church; it was only
very slowly the Church became accustomed to
this conception. Nay, even after penance was
recognized as an institution of the Church it was
not called by the name of a Sacrament because
it was considered an ignominious Sacrament
(sacramentum probrosum).
47. The words of the Lord, " Receive ye the
Holy Ghost ; whose sins you shall forgive they are
forgiven them, and whose sins you shall retain
they are retained" (John xx, 22-23), do not
refer at all to the Sacrament of Penance, what
ever it may have pleased the Tridentine Fathers
to declare.
48. James in his Epistle (v. 14-15) does not
intend to make known a Sacrament of Christ,
but to recommend a pious custom, and if per
chance he sees in this custom a means of grace
he does not take it in the rigorous sense used by
the theologians who fixed the notion and number
of the Sacraments.
49. The Christian Supper having gradually as
sumed the character of a liturgical action, those
who were accustomed to preside at the Supper
acquired the sacerdotal character.
10

THE NEW SYLLABUS

50. The elders who discharged the office of
overseers at the meetings of the Christians were
appointed by the Apostles as priests or bishops
to provide the necessary regulation of the grow
ing communities, not especially to perpetuate the
Apostolic mission and power.
51. Marriage could not become a Sacrament
of the new law till late in the Church, since for
marriage to be considered a Sacrament it was
necessary that there should first be a full theo
logical development of the doctrine on grace and
the Sacraments.
52. Christ had no intention of establishing the
Church as a society to last on earth for a long
series of centuries; nay, rather in the mind of
Christ the Kingdom of Heaven was presently
about to come with the end of the world.
53. The organic constitution of the Church is
not immutable ; but Christian society, in the same
way as human society, is subject to a perpetual
evolution. 54. The dogmas, the Sacraments, the Hier
archy in their conception and in reality are only
expressions and developments of the Christian
thought which have been increased and perfected
by external additions the little seed hidden 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 has become the head
of all the Churches not by the arrangement of
11

THE NEW SYLLABUS

Divine Providence, but owing to conditions purely
political. 57. The Church shows itself hostile to the
progress of the natural and theological sciences.
58. Truth is no more immutable than man him
self inasmuch as it is evolved with him, in him,
and through him.
59. Christ did not teach a fixed body of doc
trine applicable to all times and all men, but
rather he set on foot a certain religious move
ment adapted or to be adapted to different times
and places.
60. The Christian doctrine was in its origin
Judaic, but it became by successive developments
first Pauline, then Johannine, and finally Hellenic
and universal.
61. It can be said without paradox that no
chapter of the Scripture from the first of Genesis
to the last of the Apocalypse contains doctrines
completely identical with that which the Church
presents on the same subject, and therefore that
no chapter of the Scripture has the same sense
for the critic and for the theologian.
62. The principal articles of the Apostles'
Creed had not for the Christians of the earliest
times the meaning which they have for the Chris
tians of our times.
63. The Church shows herself incapable of
efficaciously safeguarding the gospel of ethics
because she obstinately adheres to unchangeable
doctrines which cannot be reconciled with mod
ern progress. 12

THE NEW SYLLABUS

64. The progress of the sciences demands that
the conceptions of the Christian doctrines on
God, the Creation, Revelation, the Person of the
Incarnate Word, and the Redemption, should be
reformed. 65. The Catholicism of to-day cannot be recon
ciled with true science unless it be transformed
into a kind of non-dogmatic Christianity, that is,
into a broad and liberal Protestantism.
On the following Thursday, the fourth of the
same month in the same year, a faithful report
of all this being made to our Holy Father Pope
Pius X, his Holiness approved and confirmed the
decrees of the Most Eminent Fathers and or
dered that all and each of the propositions given
above should be held by all as condemned and
proscribed. Peter Palombelli,
Notary of the Holy Roman and Universal
Inquisition.

13

The Syllabus ¥¥¥
The Old Syllabus.
WHEN, forty-three years ago, Pius IX pub
lished his famous " Syllabus " in con
nexion with the Encyclical Quanta cura, there
arose protests from governments and from public
men against the stringency of the doctrines and
the reactionary effect these were likely to have
upon modern political and scientific progress.
Yet the " Syllabus " of 1864 was nothing more
than a collection of propositions containing vari
ous ethical and doctrinal errors, which had al
ready been, separately and distinctly, censured in
the published Encyclicals and Allocutions of Pius
IX ; and they were here merely brought together
so as to serve the interpreters of Catholic doc
trine as an index of the Church's mind, ex
hibited in the utterances of her chief spokesman,
on questions of the day. Each proposition offered
a text which might be (like the texts for ser
mons taken from the Gospels) elaborated in the
light of the documentary context wherein it had
originally appeared, and made to illuminate
Catholic truth according to the exigencies and
varying occasions of time, place, and the capac
ity of the faithful. A dozen or more of these
14

THE SYLLABUS

texts were embodied in the Encyclical Quanta
cura itself; and thence arose those animated
scholastic discussions as to the extent to which
the " Syllabus " might be considered to be an ex
cathedra pronouncement possessing the note of
infallible truth. Viewed from the point of prac
tical utility these disputes contributed little or
nothing to the actual understanding and observ
ance of the doctrine and discipline set forth in the
document which, whether infallible or not, called
for the Catholic's loyal assent to the obvious
signification of each proposition. If there ex
isted any reasonable doubt as to which of several
possible meanings a clause might bear, Catholics
were free to accept the widest interpretation
compatible with what the Church had elsewhere
clearly defined; and this despite the dicta of in
dividual interpreters or theologians differing
from one another in their views. The discus
sions were kept alive for upward of thirty years,
as is demonstrated by the Abbe Vieville's he Syl
labus Commente, a volume of nearly 500 pages
published in 1879, and the more recent Vindicia
Syllabi,1 not to speak of the numerous contro
versial writings which dealt rather with the ten
dency than with the text of the Syllabus, as
defended in Newman's answer to Gladstone, or
presented in the differences of viewpoint taken
by theologians like Cardinal Mazzella as against
Hefele and others.

1 1897, Naples.
15

THE SYLLABUS

The Syllabus of Pius IX was regarded as a
somewhat novel form of instruction addressed to
the faithful by the sovereign teacher of Christen
dom. It stated what Catholics could not con
scientiously accept in the place of sound inter
pretation of their faith, and what therefore they
must refrain from teaching and endorsing. This
method of censuring erroneous doctrines left
untouched the broad freedom of interpretation
which belongs to man by reason of his native
endowments of intelligence and free will; and
the wars waged in the theological schools bear
witness to this freedom, even whilst men in the
exercise of it not infrequently lost sight of the
principle of St. Augustine — non pervenitur ad
veritatem nisi per charitatem. But the Church
is not responsible for the odium theologicum gen
erated in her schools any more than she is an
swerable for the other symptoms of weakness
exhibited in her children whom she seeks to edu
cate, or even in the teachers and executives to
whom she commits the work of reform.
There had been earlier attempts to formulate
such a chart of opinions to be avoided as the
Syllabus of Pius IX represented. Cardinal For-
nari had prepared " a list of errors " in doc
trine and discipline which it was hoped would
receive Pontifical sanction and be promulgated in
connexion with the dogmatic definition of the
Immaculate Conception in 1852. Later, in i860,
Bishop Gerbet of Perpignan published for his
own diocese a syllabus of eighty-five propositions
16

THE SYLLABUS

dealing with the errors of the day. The docu
ment became actually the model in form of the
Syllabus which Pius IX promulgated in 1864
under the title of " Syllabus comprising the prin
cipal errors of our age, censured in the Consis
tories, Encyclical writings, and Apostolic Letters
of His Holiness Pius IX." It dealt with a large
range of topics that had during the previous half-
century formed the staple of doctrine and dis
cussion in the new schools of philosophy and
politics. Thus it condemned the vagaries of pan
theism, naturalism, and rationalism, as taught by
Spinoza, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and in
terpreted by Cousin, Jules Simon, and their less
radical disciples. A distinct group of proposi
tions had for its object to censure the various
forms of indifferentism and latitudinarianism ;
others were leveled at socialism, communism,
and certain liberalizing societies acting under the
pretence of religious zeal. The political up
heavals of Italy had turned the Pontiff's atten
tion to the question of ecclesiastical rights, in
cluding the temporal sovereignty of the Pontiff.
Accordingly a proportionate number of proposi
tions dealt with this subject. Other errors which
were stigmatized touched different questions of
Christian morals, especially the modern aspects
of Marriage and the sacramental safeguards of
Catholic social and family life.
Somewhat different in scope and in tone from
the Syllabus of Pius IX is the present Syllabus
which, lacking the note of personal utterance,
17

THE SYLLABUS

appears as the work of the Sacred Congregation
of the Inquisition under the authority of the
Sovereign Pontiff.
The New Syllabus
broadly speaking, states the authoritative attitude
of the Church toward modern errors propagated
mainly, though not exclusively, within the fold.
It is a disciplinary measure issued by her teach
ing authority (magisterium) for the guidance of
those who profess allegiance to her doctrine and
discipline. Its object is to serve, on the one
hand, as a check to the unguarded defenders of
novel theories which trench upon the domain of
faith and morals, and on the other as a guide to
the consistent Christian who may find himself in
doubt about the safety of doctrines that appeal to
him by their plausibility, yet rouse his suspicion
by their novelty and apparent divergence from
established truths and principles, as hitherto in
terpreted by tradition.
The immediate purpose of the new Syllabus is
not to instruct theologians, but to safeguard the
faithful. Hence, any attempt to subject the dif
ferent propositions to the straining process of
critical analysis, or to apply to their interpreta
tion those minute distinctions which seem to be
the prerogative of the schools, would frustrate
the straightforward intention of the Sovereign
Pontiff at whose instigation a commission of the
S. Inquisition was appointed to draw up this
Syllabus. The principal aim of the document is
18

THE SYLLABUS

clearly enough indicated in the brief introduc
tory, which states that these errors are censured
because they are daily spreading among the faith
ful, threatening to take root in the minds of Cath
olic people, and thereby corrupting the purity of
their -faith.1
It is true that many of the propositions in the
new Syllabus suggest the censure of current writ
ings which, though unnamed here, are under
stood to be identified with the teaching of men
who, by their proficiency in historical learning
and scientific investigation, occupy an intellectual
position above the masses. But it is also appar
ent that the modern methods and means which
render the conclusions of these scholars popular
have greatly increased, and that a less gifted and
indiscriminate reading public is apt to be indoc
trinated with tenets, the reasons or motives and
merits of which it cannot grasp or fairly judge of.
Every thoughtful man knows that those zealots
who are least . adequately prepared by previous
systematic study to demonstrate a theory will be
the most eager to support what their partial
knowledge commends. It is much easier to de
claim in the name of science, by quoting the
words of a master, than to support a given state-
1 Ne vero hujus generis errores, qui quotidie inter
fideles sparguntur, in eorum animis radices figant ac
fidei sinceritatem corrumpant, placuit SSmo. D. N. Pio,
ut per hoc S. R. et U. Inquisitionis officiura ii qui
inter eos praecipui essent, notarentur et reprobarentur.
— Deer., Intro. J9

THE SYLLABUS

ment by the demonstrated exercise of sound and
correct judgment. And since the fact that a man
is learned and has made many experiments does
not necessarily render all his conclusions certain,
even when they are very plausible, it is but just
that our children and the simple-minded folk
among us be prevented from blindly " swearing
by the words of the individual teacher," when
ever there are reasons to fear that his conclusions
are either doubtful or dangerous to their peace
of mind.
Such reasons exist whenever men of equal
learning or of sound judgment differ in their
conclusions drawn from the same or kindred
premises. It is not necessary for a man to be a
scientist or an experimentalist to understand the
value of scientific conclusions; in truth, no man
is more in danger of overestimating the worth
of special investigations than he who has made
them. They are his offspring, and so he loves
them, exaggerates their weight and their utility;
and as his has been the hard labor of establish
ing them he is naturally reluctant to admit the
criticism that would show them to be inconclu
sive or erroneous. Nevertheless, in the case of
the scientist, as of the genius, we most often find
verified what is said of men in general, namely,
that the public takes each of them at his own
valuation. It is a fallacy of common human
weakness. Under these circumstances there must
be some court of appeal whose judges are more
broad-minded than the individual to decide, if
20

THE SYLLABUS

not upon the intrinsic or absolute correctness of
scientific conclusions, at least upon the value of
their indiscriminate application, their probable
weight as compared with other testimony of a
different or contrary tendency, and of the good
or harm they may effect when taught to the
people. For a conclusion may be theoretically
true, yet its application to actual circumstances
may be inopportune or, what is worse, hurtful,
because the occasions for misapplications happen
to be unduly rife. It may be said therefore that
when a learned man appraises his discovery, and
his friends and admirers conspire to advertise it
in his behalf, as a new truth, the general public
is much in the position of an audience to whom
an eloquent lecturer announces a new remedy of
ancient ills. The very novelty of the discovery
causes an exaggerated statement of its value, and
when its adoption has become the fashion, those
who doubt are apt to be decried as adherents of
an old school or as obscurantists. Time passes,
and the panacea of yesterday is superseded by a
fresh nostrum, whilst the reasons which approve
the new are the reasons that condemn the old.
Let one examine the records of the history of
political economy, of exegesis, of experimental
science — and with these the Syllabus happens to
deal — and he will find that the popular theories
of one age have invariably created a reactionary
theory in the next quite as popular as the contra
dictory one that preceded it. Monarchism and
republicanism, private interpretation of Scrip-
21

THE SYLLABUS

ture and the higher criticism, spontaneous gener
ation and the germ theory, furnish instances of
economical, Biblical, and scientific views of dia
metrically opposite philosophical schools claiming
almost universal sway for a time as the only evi
dence and possible solution of existing problems.
Who is to settle the practical difficulties aris
ing out of the conflict of minds ? In the secular
commonwealth it is the State authority, with due
regard to the existing political forms and the
circumstances which make legislation effective.
In the religious commonwealth it is the Church.
Competency of the Church to Point Out
Scientific Error.
The objection is frequently raised that, in pro
scribing the works of writers who have made
special historical or scientific research for the
purpose of throwing light upon modern ques
tions, particularly of Scripture and of doctrine,
the Church authorities use mere repressive power
against the quite distinct claims of reason and
intelligence. Thus, to take the present Syllabus
as an instance, a few churchmen represented by
the Inquisition, with Pius X, who lays no claim
to special scientific training, as their president,
agree to stigmatize as erroneous the published in
vestigations of the Abbe Loisy, a life-long student
in the field of the Scriptures and of dogma. It is
as if a jury of common laborers, however intel
ligent and honest they may be, were to sit in
judgment on the scientific merits of the physio-
22

THE SYLLABUS

logical tests of a Leipzig specialist, whose labora
tory apparatus for investigating and observing
the manifestations of animal and psychic life
secure for him results not easily accessible to the
ordinary student. In other words, an unprofes
sional jury undertakes to pronounce judgment
upon the merits of expert scientific testimony.
The objection would have weight if we had
here a perfect analogy. The Roman jury of the
Inquisition does not pretend to pronounce sen
tence upon expert scientific testimony, but rather
upon the very commonplace moral effects which
are certain to result from the teaching of such
testimony if spread broadcast among those who
are not qualified to discriminate between a scien
tific hypothesis and an ascertained fact. The
Syllabus deals with the value of the results as
sumed as demonstrated by the individual scien
tist, not with the correctness of the processes by
which he may have reached them. The object of
the Church is to safeguard the truth of things
and the possession of truths of which she has
been assured by a far higher Intelligence than
that of a commission of theologians such as com
pose the Inquisition. That a scientist, however
learned or conscientious he may be, should rob a
Christian mind of the motives of credibility upon
which divine revelation rests, and give him in
return nothing but the assurance of individual
talent and labor, is admitting a principle which
subverts the very fundamentals of sane evidence,
unless we relinquish the testimony of revealed
religion entirely. 23

THE SYLLABUS

Whenever we meet with a statement accepted
as actual fact by the authorities of the Church,
and maintained as fact against the contrary asser
tion of the scientist, either such fact is vouched
for by divine revelation or its contrary assump
tion is not sufficiently demonstrated by science to
warrant the sacrifice of an established tradition.
Such is the case with regard to the theories,
lately repudiated by the authorities of the Church,
touching the Mosaic authorship of the Penta
teuch, or the Johannine authorship of the Fourth
Gospel. Her censure of both theories means in
the first place that the champions of the new
theory have merely criticized the old tradition
without proving conclusively that it is erroneous.
In other words, they have not brought positive
proof of sufficient weight to equal that on which
the traditional belief rests. Hence that belief
must stand. The Church authorities do not add
" for the present," simply because, since there is
no sufficient reason to accept the new exegesis or
new theology as more than a mere hypothesis,
any prognosis of what science may prove here
after is out of place. The unbiased critic will
recognize this truth on examination of the facts
in every single case. The Church may have
reasons to alter her disciplinary laws, as any
society may, but whilst she makes them for pres
ent conditions they are absolute and presently
binding. It is plain, then, that a competent jury in such
cases need not possess expert learning to pass
24

THE SYLLABUS

sound judgment upon the practical effects which
certain doctrines must exercise upon the moral
and religious life of the community, or to decide
whether and how far a newly-claimed doctrine
contradicts an established truth of a higher order.
One might, indeed, quote historical evidence to
show that narrow judgments of potent church
men occasionally limit the free exercise of genius.
The case of Galileo is a favorite one with the
advocates of individual rights as against the
abuse of ecclesiastical rule. To make such inci
dents the basis of an argument against the bene
ficent purpose and action of an institution like
the Inquisition appears to us very much the same
as if one inveighed against the supreme courts
of justice, because it can be shown that such
courts have occasionally erred in pronouncing
judgment. Unless we make the Inquisition an
infallible tribunal, we must expect that it is
liable to issue judgments that may possibly be
reversed at some future time. But the existence
of such a possibility neither suspends the judg
ments of a legal tribunal nor creates any pre
sumption that its decisions are not as a rule just
and true.
To confine ourselves to the application of this
test of the justice of the censures implied in the
Syllabus, we should find it in sooth difficult to
select a more representative body of educated
and liberal-minded judges than the commission
appointed to examine the ethical, Biblical, and
theological theories and doctrines of modern
25

THE SYLLABUS

times, and to pass judgment as to whether and
in what sense these theories imply a subversion
of established principles and truths maintained in
the apostolic deposit of Catholic faith. The In
quisition consists of about fifty members, among
whom are some thirty consultors, heads for the
most part of religious communities, of univer
sities and learned academies, who have attained
their positions in nearly every case by fully
demonstrated ability through long years spent
both in teaching and in actual administration.
Practically every order and nationality has its
representatives in this body — Father David Flem
ing, the English Franciscan, P. Cormier, the
French Dominican, P. Wernz, the German Jesuit,
the two latter being the Generals of their respec
tive Orders. Besides these there are the officials
called qualificators and archivists, who directly
serve the consultors, read, revise, ascertain facts,
verify, compare, and collate the results. These
men do not do their work hastily. In the pres
ent case they have been working for two years.
The conclusions of their labors are tabulated,
again examined, and finally submitted to the
judgment of the tribunal which has at its head
ten or more cardinals, men of exceptional learn
ing, of tried experience, and of conscientious ap
preciation of the responsibility to the public
which their judgment involves. That the Sover
eign Pontiff, head of a body whose pronounced
tendencies are in favor of vindicating the good
name of the Church as the protector of learning
26

THE SYLLABUS

no less than as the guardian of faith, should
assume any other than a most liberal and benevo
lent attitude in reviewing the tenets that claim
the patronage of science, seems contrary to every
fair view of the case. Cardinals Rampolla, Gotti,
Ferrata, Serafino Vannutelli, Merry del Val, Re-
spighi, Steinhuber, Segna, Vives y Tuto, who
form the chief judges of the Inquisition, are not
men who would lay themselves open to the charge
of patronizing obscurantism, unless it were de
manded by the evident duty of defending the
fundamental principles of Christian doctrine and
discipline. There are, of course, those who be
lieve that the doctrines of the Gospels are ob
scurantism, and that the principles which Christ
characterized as heavenly wisdom should be re
vised to give place to the utilitarian wisdom of
the world which He pronounced to be folly. In
her own domain the Church must remain judge
of these things; and the preservation of faith
and of morals through religious discipline is emi
nently the province of the Church. To carry out
effectually this work of safeguarding her sub
jects from the aggressive enterprises of those
who, under the guise of intellectual progress,
sincere though they be, threaten to destroy the
life of faith, the Church has her organs of gov
ernment, one of which is the Inquisition, and
these organs issue their laws, warnings, direc
tions, as in this case of the Syllabus.
27

THE SYLLABUS

A Board of Moral Health.
The functions of the Inquisition and the mean
ing of the Syllabus will perhaps be best under
stood if we compare them to similar institutions
in the civil order. Republican government is not
supposed to interfere with individual rights. Its
object is rather to promote the contentment and
prosperity of its subjects. It promotes science
and individual enterprise, and secures the rights
of competitive action by legislation, sometimes
restrictive, sometimes punitive. It also provides
for the physical well-being of its subjects within
certain limits. Among the measures adopted for
this purpose there are Boards of Health, whose
functions are, on the one hand, to prevent the
rise and spreading of disease, and on the other
hand to promote the use of wholesome food
stuffs to the exclusion of adulterated products
which we owe to the progress of science and to
the commercial enterprise of individuals and of
companies. Now the Board of Health claims,
and justly, to forbid the indiscriminate emptying
into public streams or highways, of garbage, or
chemical matter, or animal products, which might
infect the common air or water; and this even
when such products are the necessary concomi
tant of important scientific or commercial enter
prise. Again, the Board of Health deems it a
duty to protect the public against the thousand
and one doubtful and noxious food preparations
which commend themselves to the housewife as
labor-saving, cheap, and palatable, not to speak
28

THE SYLLABUS

of the fact that they are promotive of invention
as well as of industry. Does the average citizen
complain of violation of his personal rights be
cause he is confronted in public places with an
inscription " Please do not spit," or because he
receives a list from the Department of Public
Health warning him that the " absolutely pure
baking soda " is adulterated with arsenic or
other hurtful ingredients ? The manufacturer of
these products may cry out against such legisla
tion because it puts an embargo on scientific ex
perimentation of benefit to mankind by propos
ing to feed it more economically, or because it
interferes with the individual right of a citizen
to poison himself comfortably. But a sensible
economist will conclude that the government's
vigilance is beneficent in its purpose and advan
tageous in its net results. Even if the Board of
Health were, through the fanaticism of one or
other of its members, at times to pass some ex
treme measure or injure some individual or pri
vate interest, we should not interpret such action
as indicative of the uselessness or injuriousness
of the principle and method of hygienic protec
tion. Now the Inquisition is nothing more or less
than the Board of Health of the Church. Its
functions are, of course, in the moral order. It
examines the poisonous products of modern in
ventions which the intellectual enterprise of
scholars throws upon the market, or into the
streams of popular education. It warns the citi-
29

THE SYLLABUS

zens of the religious commonwealth which the
Church represents, and it forbids under censure
the pollution of public places, or the manufac
ture and sale of noxious products that would in
fect the moral health of her subjects. In regard
to some things prohibited we can conceive of
changed conditions that would remove the nox
ious character of these things when applied in a
different way. But as it is, they are hurtful to
the public, and without issuing an infallible ver
dict in a matter which does not require such
assurance, the Church claims the right of de
manding obedience, such as an intelligently
directed will gives to a disciplinary command, or
even warning, issued for the common good.
The Syllabus is a list of adulterated food prod
ucts, the result of scientific experiment, but not
on that account the less injurious to the health
of heart and mind.
Categories of Errors.
To obtain a better survey of the kinds of
adulterated and poisonous mental food products
of which the Syllabus forms an instructive, if
summary, list, the sixty-five propositions or errors
which it contains may be grouped under five
heads. There are false teachings about the func
tions of authority, of written revelation, of apos
tolic tradition, of dogmatic integrity and unity,
and of the development of doctrine. They deal
with principles, or with facts, or simply with
effects. They may not censure a proposition in
30

THE SYLLABUS

its separate parts, but only in its entirety, for the
parts may be true, and yet the composition false.
Salt is one of the most helpful factors of nutri
tion, yet chlorine which forms part of it causes
almost instant death when absorbed separately
by the vital organs.
Thus, through the Syllabus of the Inquisition,
the Church in her capacity as guardian of the
faith proscribes loose views about authority,
ecclesiastical and civil, since she understands that
all authority is from God. She vindicates the
value of accredited divine revelation upon which
faith must build up its confidence in the future.
She repudiates the assumption of the individual
to interpret the laws of faith and discipline, which
have the sanction of ages, by the mere notions
of a new philosophical theory, or to give up the
acquired historical bases of moral law and recti
tude merely because of the assertions that they
are disproved by analogy and the existence of
myths and fables which resemble the facts of
sacred history. The careful student of these
propositions will easily recognize that the Church
does not condemn a free interpretation of his
torical evidence, as, for example, in Scripture,
where there is warrant for relinquishing a literal
for a figurative sense.
There is abundant evidence in the utterances
and acts of both Pius X and those who act under
his chief authority, that the government of the
Church is anxious to advance the interests of
science in all its domains; but also to maintain
31

THE SYLLABUS

that first of prerogatives and duties which her
position as Christ's representative entails —
namely, to advance the principles of sound ethics
and religion, and to make education the vehicle
not merely of intellectual prowess (which may
lead to fatal errors), but also of that highest
culture which Christian civilization represents,
only because it has been moved by Christian
principles as taught in the Gospel and the doc
trinal code of the Church.

32

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