APPENDIX VI.

Pius X.'s Oath Against Modernism—juris jurandi formula.

[The original, which occurs in Pius X.'s encyclical, sacrorum antistitum, Sept. 1, 1910, is found in Acta ap. sedis for 1910, II., 655 sqq.; Mirbt, 515–17; Denzinger, 599 sqq.; Ayrinhac, Pres. St. Patrick's Sem., Menlo Park, Cal.: General Code of the New Canon Law, N.Y., 1923, 90–95. The oath was 'explicitly' reaffirmed by the Holy Office, March 22, 1918, as obligatory for Roman Catholic priests and teachers in addition to Pius IV.'s professio catholicæ fidei—until otherwise decreed by papal authority.]

I firmly embrace and accept all and singly those articles which have been defined, set forth and declared by the Church's inerrant teaching-authority and especially those heads of doctrines which directly conflict with the errors of this age. And, 1., I confess that God, the beginning and end of all things, can with certainty be known and proved to be by the natural light of reason from those things which are made, that is by the visible works of creation, even as a cause may be certainly proved from its effects. 2. I accept and acknowledge the external arguments of revelation, that is the divine facts especially miracles and prophecy, and I also accept the most sure proofs of the divine origin of the Christian religion and hold that they are pre-eminently adapted to the intelligence of all ages and men and, in particular, of this age. 3. And with firm faith, I equally believe that the Church, the guardian and teacher of the revealed Word, was directly founded by the real and historical Christ himself, as he dwelt with us, and that she was built upon Peter, the prince of the Apostolic hierarchy and his successors forever. 4. I sincerely receive the teaching of the faith as it has been handed down to us from the Apostles and orthodox Fathers and handed down in the same sense and meaning; and furthermore, I utterly reject the heretical fiction—commentum—of the evolution of dogmas according to which they change from one meaning to another and a meaning contradictory to that meaning which the Church before had given; and equally do I condemn that entire error according to which philosophical discovery 614suffices, although the divine deposit was given to Christ's bride and given to be faithfully guarded by her, or according to which it [the teaching] is little by little transformed in meaning by the creations of the human consciousness and man's effort and brought to perfection in the future by an indefinite progression. 5. I most surely hold and sincerely declare that faith is not a blind realization of religion drawn out of the darkness of the subconscience, morally enlightened by the influence of the heart and the inflexions of the will, but that it is an honest assent by the intellect, given to truth accepted through hearing of the ear by the which we believe as true those things which have been revealed and confirmed by a personal God, our Creator and Lord, and on the basis of the authority of God, who in the highest sense is trustworthy.

Likewise,—and this is equally important—I submit myself reverently and with my whole mind to all the condemnations, declarations and commands contained in the encyclical pascendi and the decree lamentabili, especially in regard to that which they call the history of dogmas—historiam dogmatum. I also reprobate the error of those who assert that the faith offered by the Church may by any possibility conflict with history; and the error that it is not possible to harmonize, in the sense in which they are now understood, the Catholic dogmas with the origins of the Christian religion which are the more trustworthy.—I condemn and reject the opinions of those who say that the more learned Christians may represent at one and the same time two persons, the one a believer the other a historian, as if it were possible to hold on as an historian to things which are contradictory to the faith of the believer or lay down premises according to which it follows that dogmas are either false or dubious, just so they be not openly set aside.—Equally, do I reprobate that principle of judging the holy Scriptures and interpreting them, which, in defiance of the Church's tradition, the analogy of faith and the rules of the Apostolic see, suits itself to the comments of rationalists and, scarcely less lawlessly than rashly, accepts textual criticism as the one only and supreme rule.—Further, I reject the theory of those who hold that the teacher in the department of historic theology as well as the writer on its subjects must place opinion above the principle of the supernatural origin of Catholic tradition and the promise of divine aid in the preservation of all truth and, further, that the writings of the 615individual Fathers must be explained by the principles of science alone apart from any sacred authority and by the same free judgment that any profane document is studied or investigated.—Finally, I profess myself most averse to the error of the Modernists who hold that in sacred tradition there is not a divine element; or—what is far worse,—who reason in a pantheistic sense, so that nothing is left but the bare and naked historic occurrence like unto other occurrences of history which are left to men to carry on in subsequent periods by their industry, shrewdness and genius the teaching—scholam—begun by Christ and his Apostles. And I do most firmly hold to the faith of the Fathers and will continue so to do to the last breath of life, the faith concerning the unfailing charism of the truth which now inheres, has inhered and will always continue to inhere in the episcopal succession from the Apostles; that nothing is to be regarded as better or more opportune which the culture of this age or that age can suggest and that nothing is at any time to be otherwise believed or otherwise understood as the absolute and immutable truth preached from the beginning by the Apostles.

To all these things I promise to hold faithfully, sincerely, and wholly and I promise to keep them inviolably, never departing from them in teaching or by any words or writings. Thus I promise and swear, so help me God and these holy Gospels of God.