Pius X, 1903-1914

fallen from heaven, but they are a kind of interpretation of religious facts, which the human mind by a laborious effort prepared for itself.

2023. 23. Opposition can and actually does exist between facts which are narrated in Sacred Scripture, and the dogmas of the Church based on these, so that a critic can reject as false, facts which the Church believes to be most certain.

2024. 24. An exegete is not to be reproved who constructs premises from which it follows that dogmas are historically false or dubious, provided he does not directly deny the dogmas themselves.

2025. 25. The assent of faith ultimately depends on an accumulation of probabilities.

2026. 26. The dogmas of faith are to be held only according to a practical sense, that is, as preceptive norms for action, but not as norms for believing.

2027. 27. The divinity of Jesus Christ is not proved from the Gospels; but is a dogma which the Christian conscience has deduced from the notion of the Messias.

2028. 28. When Jesus was exercising His ministry, He did not speak with this purpose, to teach that He was the Messias, nor did His miracles have as their purpose to demonstrate this.

2029. 29. It may be conceded that the Christ whom history presents, is far inferior to the Christ who is the object of faith.

2030. 30. In all the evangelical texts the name, Son of God, is equivalent to the name of Messias; but it does not at all signify that Christ is the true and natural Son of God.

2031. 31. The doctrine about Christ, which Paul, John, and the Councils of Nicea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon hand down, is not that which Jesus taught, but which the Christian conscience conceived about Jesus.

2032. 32. The natural sense of the evangelical texts cannot be reconciled with that which our theologians teach about the consciousness and the infallible knowledge of Jesus Christ.

2033. 33. It is evident to everyone, who is not influenced by preconceived opinions, that either Jesus professed an error concerning the immediate coming of the Messias, or the greater part of the doctrine contained in the Synoptic Gospels is void of authenticity.

2034. 34. The critic cannot ascribe to Christ knowledge circumscribed by no limit, except on the supposition which can by no means be conceived historically, and which is repugnant to the moral sense, namely, that Christ as man had the knowledge of God, and nevertheless was unwilling to share the knowledge of so many things with His disciples and posterity.

2035. 35. Christ did not always have the consciousness of His Messianic dignity.