Alfred Loisy, a controversial figure much of his life, studied at the Institut Catholique in Paris from 1881 to 1893. His work on the historical-critical method brought condemnation by Cardinal Richard in 1893 and excommunication by Pius X in 1908. During this period he came under the influence of John Henry Newman's An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine: The Gospel and the Church and thereby brought to a head the whole problem of Modernism in the Roman Catholic Church. Bernard B. Scott, who wrote the introduction to this volume, teaches New Testament at the St. Meinrad School of Theology and is also Academic Dean there.