Pius X, 1903-1914

whatever, in like circumstances they would have done, all this they transfer to Christ.—Thus then to conclude, a priori and according to certain principles of philosophy which they in truth hold but profess to ignore, they affirm that Christ, in what they call real history, is not God and never did anything divine; indeed, that He did and said as a man what they themselves attribute to Him the right of doing and saying, taking themselves back to His times.

2097. [V] Moreover, as history receives its conclusions from philosophy, so criticism takes its conclusions from history. For the critic, following the indications furnished by the historian, divides documents in two ways. Whatever is left after the threefold elimination just mentioned he assigns to real history; the rest he delegates to the history of faith or internal history. For they distinguish sharply between these two histories; the history of faith (and this we wish to be well noted) they oppose to the real history, as it is real. Thus, as we have already said, the two Christs: one real, the other, who never was in fact, but pertains to faith; one who lived in a certain place and in a certain age; another, who is found only in the pious commentaries of faith; such, for example, is the Christ whom the Gospel of John presents, which, according to them is nothing more or less than a meditation.

2098. But the domination of philosophy over history is not ended with this. After the documents have been distributed in a twofold manner, the philosopher is again on hand with his dogma of vital immanence; and he declares that all things in the history of the Church are to be explained by vital emanation. But either the cause or the condition of vital emanation is to be placed in some need or want; therefore, too, the fact must be conceived after the need, and the one is historically posterior to the other. —Why then the historian? Having scrutinized the documents again, either those that are contained in the Sacred Books or have been introduced from elsewhere, he draws up from them an index of the particular needs which relate not only to dogma but to liturgy, and other matters which have had a place one after the other in the Church. He hands over the index so made to the critic. Now he (the critic) takes in hand the documents which are devoted to the history of faith, and he so arranges them age by age that they correspond one by one with the index submitted, always mindful of the precept that the fact is preceded by the need, and the need by the fact. Surely, it may at times happen that some parts of the Bible, as for example the epistles, are the fact itself created by the need. Yet whatever it is, the law is that the age of any document is not to be determined otherwise than by the age of any need that has arisen in the Church.—Besides, a distinction must be made between the origin of any fact and the development of the same, for what can be born on one day, takes on growth only with the passage of time. For this reason the critic