diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 78085-0.txt | 2233 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 78085-h/78085-h.htm | 3247 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 78085-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 306569 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 78085-h/images/left-brace.png | bin | 0 -> 2439 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 78085-h/images/right-brace.png | bin | 0 -> 2437 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
8 files changed, 5496 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/78085-0.txt b/78085-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..13526ae --- /dev/null +++ b/78085-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2233 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78085 *** + + + + + THE CALVERT SERIES + HILAIRE BELLOC, _General Editor_ + + + THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND HISTORY + + + + + THE CALVERT SERIES + + HILAIRE BELLOC, _General Editor_ + + + _Belloc_: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND HISTORY + _Chesterton_: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND CONVERSION + _McNabb_: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PHILOSOPHY + _Ward_: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE APPEAL TO REASON + _Windle_: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND ITS REACTIONS WITH SCIENCE + + + + + THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND HISTORY + + BY + HILAIRE BELLOC + + _NEW YORK_ + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + 1927 + _All Rights Reserved_ + + + + + Nihil Obstat + ARTHUR J. SCANLAN, S. T. D. + Censor Librorum. + + Imprimatur + PATRICK CARDINAL HAYES + ✠ Archbishop, New York. + + New York, September 16, 1926. + + + Copyright, 1926, + BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. + + Set up and electrotyped. + Published November, 1926. + Reprinted, April, 1927 + September, 1927. + + + _Printed in the United States of America by_ + THE FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY, NEW YORK. + + + + + PREFACE + + +The object of the author has been to state and summarise in a brief, +succinct form the arguments drawn from History in opposition to the +claim of the Catholic Church: that is, to the claim put forward by +that Church to speak with Divine and Infallible Authority. The author +insists upon the point that he is not attempting a positive apologetic +drawn from History in favour of this claim, but a rebutting of the +evidence drawn from History opposed to this claim. He is engaged in +examining the value of the arguments drawn from History to prove that +the Catholic Church has varied or erred in her teaching or has made it +depend upon immoral methods, and in showing that they have no force. + +The little book is divided into two parts, the first dealing with the +three moral arguments: (1) that the Church has made pronouncements +which History can prove to be false; (2) that the Church can be proved +by History to have used material which she knew to be false; (3) that +the Church, being proved by history to be not only organised but +increasingly organised from the beginning of its existence, is thereby +shown to be different from the simple thing which a divine institution +of the sort should be. + +Secondly, the intellectual argument, to wit, that the Church can +be proved by History to be man-made, not God-made. This the author +divides into two sections: (1) the Protestant argument that there was +some original good message told by Jesus Christ, which the Church has +gradually corrupted and from the origin of which she has deviated; +(2) the general agnostic argument that the Church can be proved +historically to be but one of many religions, to have grown up like +any other religion, with the same illusions and similar rites and +mysteries, and is therefore man-made--which last form of attack the +author regards as to-day by far the most serious. + + + + + EDITOR’S PREFACE + + +There needs but a brief introduction from the same pen as that which +composed the essay which follows it. + +It must be to this effect. + +The general subject “The Catholic Church and History” might be treated +from a hundred different positions. Perhaps the most important in +the eyes of the cultured man of our day is the question whether the +Catholic Church is, or is not, proved by the general story of European +history for the last two thousand years to have been a beneficent +influence. That question, however, I cannot touch upon because the +question whether the Church be beneficent or no is, to a Catholic, +subsidiary to the point whether its claim to be the very truth is valid +or no. If this claim is justified, then certainly the Church must +be beneficent. If it be proved beneficent, that will indeed be some +support of its claim; but a weak one, because we cannot even judge +whether it be beneficent or no until we have decided what we think +better and what worse--and this issue cannot be decided until we are +certain of our philosophy, that is, of our religion. + +It is another and more important point to discuss whether the Church in +her long history has, or has not, shown exceptional signs of holiness +and of supernatural power, which are an evidence of her claim. There +are also, as I have said, very many other points of discussion which +the general title suggests. + +I have confined myself to _one_, and _one_ only, to wit, the rebutting +of a certain argument drawn from History _against_ the Church. I +have done so for the reason that, in my eyes at least, much the most +formidable assault delivered against the Catholic Church to-day is +the assault delivered from the historical argument. There remains (as +I have said in the Essay that follows) much of the old Protestant +argument, to wit, that an original excellent establishment or message +of divine origin was corrupted in the course of the centuries and that +the Roman Communion still defends that corruption, so that its claim to +authority fails. This I have attempted to meet. But of far more weight +in my judgment, at the present moment, is the general argument that, +regarding History as a whole and adding to it what little we can guess, +and what very little we positively know, about man before he began +to establish records, the Faith is but an illusion, parallel to many +another such illusion to which men have been subject by the process of +projecting their own imaginations upon the void of the universe. + +This I am convinced is the chief attack which we of the Faith have to +meet in modern times. The modern white world, the world of the European +races and their oversea expansion, is rapidly becoming divided into +two fairly definite camps: those who accept the full mission of the +Catholic Church and those who are convinced, by the study of geology +and recorded History, that the Catholic Church is but one more example +of man’s power of self-delusion. + +Two questions may be asked of me by those who should read the analysis +which makes up my booklet. First, why have I confined myself to +rebutting, that is, to a negative position, instead of advancing +positive evidence from History in favor of the Catholic claim (evidence +drawn from holiness, continuity, unity, etc.)? Secondly, why have +I given but a portion, and not the largest portion, of my space to +what I have called the most important part of the attack, to wit, the +attack from general pre-History and History, the purely Sceptical +attack which I deal with at the end of my Essay? My answer to these two +questions is as follows: + +First, that, in my judgment, the action of the Catholic Church is here +a defensive action. The opponent _takes it for granted_ that History +and pre-History _dis_prove the Catholic claim. He must be met as one +attacking. + +Secondly, that though the general Sceptical attack is by far the more +important, yet it needs less space in writing for the meeting of it +than does the discussion of the old Protestant attitude. The reason +is that the issue between the Faith and mere scepticism is narrower +and sharper, and at the same time more general. If you are debating +whether the Church declined or was corrupted you must go into more +historical detail. You must in some degree, even in so short an essay +as this, be concrete. But on the other and larger issue you have a +very simple and direct “yes” or “no”; which is, briefly, the answer +to that old, eternal question “whether religion be from God or from +man”; and upon the answer to that question depends the future of our +civilisation.--_The Editor._ + + + + + THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND HISTORY + + + + + I + + +1. By the term “The Church” I mean the Catholic Church; and by the +Catholic Church I mean that visible society real, one, and clearly +present before the world to-day, which is in communion with the +Apostolic See of Rome, and accepts not only the supremacy of that +see but also the Infallibility of its occupant when, as shepherd and +teacher of all Christians, and speaking in that capacity, he defines a +matter in faith or morals. + +2. The Church claims Divine Authority. She says: + +“I alone know fully and teach those truths essential to the life and +final happiness of the soul. I alone am that Society wherein the human +spirit reposes in its native place; for I alone stand in the centre +whence all is seen in proportion and whence the chaotic perspective of +things falls into right order. Mankind cannot feed upon itself--for +that is death at last. I alone provide external sustenance from that +which made mankind. The soil of my country alone can fully nourish +mankind. Here, in me, alone is reality. For I alone am not man-made but +am of direct divine foundation and am by my divine Founder perpetually +maintained.” + +3. Against this claim many forms of rejection are found, each with its +type of argument: as, that the claim conflicts with the ascertained +results of Physical Science: that it advances a particular affirmation +not based on the only proofs admissible by reason: that the objector +discovers in the Church not the marks of holiness which should +accompany such a claim, but rather of evil, etc. + +Among the chief objections is the objection from History. It is +affirmed that the records of the past, the better they are known +and the more closely they are examined, make the more certainly for +the rejection of the Church’s claim to Divine Authority, to unique +inspiration. These records (it is affirmed) show the Church to be of +merely human origin. They yield manifold evidence that illusion, myth +and even craft have built up her structure. Her rites are of the kind +imagined by men in all ages and places wherever men have abandoned +themselves to emotional images divorced from reason. Her doctrines are +spun out of nothingness by men engaged upon mere systems invented +to explain irrational statements. Her objects of worship are but +projections of the worshipper’s mind and have no real existence. + +History, it is said, can prove all this. We can trace illusion growing +from step to step: the mythical and legendary gradually accepted for +fact; the doubtful, vague, uncertain, tentative dream hardening into +fixed and absurd dogma. Supposed contemporary evidence, enlightened +History with modern apparatus, proved to be subsequent interpolations. +The writings traditionally ascribed to witnesses turn out--under the +examination of History--to be of a very different and later date. +Beyond all this and clinching the argument is the discovery through +History that men have always thus created for themselves wholly +fanciful beings whom they have worshipped always in much the same +fashions. There has been a long process of self-deception from which +humanity in its advance is gradually freeing itself, and in this +process the Catholic Church is but the last phase. + +It is this objection, the argument from History, that I propose to +refute. Certain other of the main objections--the objection from +Reason, the objection from Philosophy, the objection from Physical +Science--are dealt with in other works in this series. I am dealing +with the historical objection alone. I propose to show, not that +History may convince any man of the Church’s claim, but that the +supposed argument from History against that claim has failed. I propose +to enquire upon the validity of the objection from History. + + + + + II + + +Premises must precede such an enquiry. I lay them down as follows: + +(1) The refutation of any argument against the Faith is not a +demonstration of the truth of the Faith. It is the removal only +of an obstacle to the Faith. For the Faith is not arrived at by +demonstration, but by demonstration it is shown to be at least tenable. +The Faith is not a conclusion which all can reach by the formal action +of reason, but a revelation to be defended by reason. The Faith is not +a theory, but a thing. It is rational, but not deductively arrived at. +There is no process whereby all mankind can be convinced of it as of an +abstract proposition. But there is a process whereby all mankind can be +convinced that each particular proposition against it has failed. + +This principle in what is called “Apologetics” (that is, writings in +defence of Catholic truth) is so generally neglected that it is of +the first importance to make it quite clear at the opening of any +discussion upon revealed religion. + +A man who can see colours will never be able to prove colour +to a colour-blind man. He can show that the colour-blind man’s +arguments--e.g., that colours do not exist because if they did they +would affect surface--are false. If he proceeds to establish the +presence of colours positively, he must do so by analogy, by convergent +evidence, by the manifest action of others, by the proved nature of +other senses than that of sight. He can only _prove_ (in the strict +deductive sense of the word “prove”) that the sense of colour is +rational, acceptable without violence to the human mind; but that it is +present he must establish by other methods. + +Nearly all our modern debates in this matter are confused by the fact +that one of the parties misconceives the nature of these debates. The +opponent of Catholicism thinks that its apologist is, in arguing, +trying to prove Catholic truth as one proves a case for a positive +verdict. He is not. He is rebutting the supposed value of opposing +evidence; he is pleading for a negative verdict; for acquittal of +the charge “irrational.” When he comes to establishing the Faith +positively, he does not do so by following one line of deductive +reason, but by a mass of converging considerations. + +History cannot be said to prove the Faith, save in the very extended +use of the word “prove” to mean a general process of increasing +conviction from the examination of what is revealed of the Church’s +action on the world, of men’s attitude towards it, of the moral and +intellectual activities of acceptors and rejectors compared. But it can +be _proved_ that an increasing knowledge of History does not shake the +Church’s claim to Divine Authority: while, on the contrary, a lesser +knowledge is almost invariably more hostile to that authority than a +greater. + +(2) I have used the term “reason,” and this leads me to my second +premise: The human reason is absolute in its own sphere. + +That elementary truth is often denied to-day (though the minds which +deny it can only use reason to arrive at this very conclusion!), but it +is fundamental and I must postulate it as a necessary prelude to any +discussion. For to argue with men who deny the basis of all argument +is futile; it is like pleading in a court where the judge is a corpse +and the jury a set of waxworks. + +A man says, “The river Ohio flows eastwards.” I show by the compass, +the map, and the sun, or in any other rational way you like that it +flows westward. If he then answer me, “Oh! that is formal logic--I have +no use for it! Westward and eastward are but apparent contradictories. +They can be resolved into a higher unity. And, after all, what is +‘flowing’? And here is a bend of the river which does flow eastward +for a mile or two. And a statement may well be true in a higher sense +than the geographical one. And anyhow, the modern mind is no longer +bound by the mediaeval fetters of dialectic”--if he replies with +this sort of rigmarole, I must leave him to it. I am writing not for +modernists--that is, not for people who think that a proposition can be +both true and untrue at the same time--but for men of sane tradition +who admit logic as a court of final appeal in things of the mind. For +we Catholics regard reason as supreme in its own sphere and will admit +nothing contrary to reason. + +(3) Lastly, I must premise that we are discussing things as they are: +the real Catholic Church; and are excluding from the discussion what +is not germane to it. We are discussing the claim of the Catholic +Church to authority, the claims of its accredited organs to express +divine truth--not what some opponent may in ignorance regard as an +accredited organ of the Catholic Church, when it is nothing of the +kind, nor a supposed doctrine of the Church which the Church has never +taught. Conversely, I do not admit as rebutting evidence such phrases +as “all the best authorities” or “all the latest authorities”--they are +worthless as evidence. I examine the grounds on which the affirmations +are made, not the mere affirmation unsupported by anything but fashion. +(Thus, if an opponent advance, “Marcus, a priest, said the earth was +flat: it is proved round; therefore the Catholic Church was wrong,” +it is replied that Marcus, a priest, is not the Catholic Church. +Or if it be said, “The Catholic Church teaches that mankind is but +six thousand years old,” it is answered, “Many heretical sects have +taught this but the Catholic Church has never taught it.” Or if it be +said, “The Catholic Church affirms the witness of the fourth Gospel +but all reasoning men admit that it is spurious,” it is replied, +“All reasoning men do not admit that it is spurious: that is but the +affirmation of a fashionable school.”) + + + + + III + + +We must begin by establishing the main sections into which is divided +the argument from History against the claims of the Catholic Church. + +But before setting out these sections in their order I must reject one +as having no relation to the discussion, though often confused with it: +I mean the so-called historical argument from material prosperity. + +It is advanced that the claim of the Catholic Church to Divine +Authority is negatived by a proved historical process whereby societies +rejecting the Church’s claim are blessed with material prosperity, +while societies accepting that claim become poor. + +Such an argument no more applies to societies in their relation to +the Church’s authority than it does to individuals in relation to the +authority of their own conscience or of their own reason. My conviction +that a course of action is morally right, or that a given statement is +intellectually true, is not to be tested by its effect upon my income. +In point of fact, the argument is as worthless in its presumptions as +in its reasoning. The historical affirmation is historically false. It +is not true that societies have risen in wealth through the rejection +of the Catholic Faith, or fallen in wealth through the retention of it. +The two phenomena are not correlated in History at all, and there is +as much to be set upon the one side of the account in this brief two +hundred years over which the rises and falls extend as on the other. + +But even were the statement true, the application of it would be +clearly beside the mark: even had every Catholic society fallen into +penury and every anti-Catholic risen to affluence, it would be utterly +without bearing upon the truth or falsehood of the Catholic claim. + +This being said, what are the respectable and historical arguments +against the Faith? What are those arguments drawn from History of which +the intelligent man must take serious notice? They would seem to fall +into two categories: + +The first argument I will call the minor argument, because it appeals +only to the moral sense--not that the moral sense is less than the +intellectual, but that in weighing questions of material evidence +(which is the matter of History) a moral test takes the second place. +Thus, in a court of justice evidence to character, though of weight, +counts less in establishing a man’s claim than material evidence. Next +I find, and much more cogent, a major argument, which is directly +concerned with the intellectual facilities of man. + +(I) The minor, or moral argument, as I have called it, is directed +against the character of the Church, and attempts to show from History +that her character is not consonant with her claims. It has many forms: +accusations of cruelty, of unsocial neglect in material things, etc., +but the main headings are three: + +(a) The Church has been historically confident upon and has affirmed +as truths a number of points since proved to be erroneous: a Divine +Authority would never go wrong upon any point. + +(b) The Church has relied on falsehoods and propagated them _after_ she +had known them to be falsehoods, and has not abandoned them until she +was compelled to abandon them by the overwhelming weight of evidence. +No Divine Authority would act in this fashion. + +(c) The Church is highly organised and has apparently always shown +organisation: such organisation has developed more and more from the +beginning, or at any rate from a very early stage indeed. The Church +is a body whose doctrines, institutions and structure have perpetually +proceeded from the simpler to the more complex and from the less to the +more defined. Nothing possessing divine inspiration would be organised, +for organisation is mechanical and is of death: inspiration, which is +of life, remains free, at large, untrammelled by rule. + +(II) What I have called the major, intellectual argument, which is much +the more serious in all our debate, stands thus: + +The Church is man-made, as can be seen by the appearance over and over +again in History of a doctrine or a practice unknown to an earlier +epoch, and more largely, by a comparison between all religions; for +the Church, which seemed a unique phenomenon to the lesser historical +knowledge of our fathers, is now discovered to be but one of many +similar phenomena, one of many religions, with rites and doctrines not +indeed identical (they differ widely), but all having parts in common +and all presumably of human institution. Therefore the Church must be +included in the character of all religions: it is but one of many and +man-made like the rest. + +But this major, intellectual argument falls into two very distinct +branches, which I will call the Protestant and the purely Sceptical. + +(a) The Protestant appeal to History takes the form of saying: “The +Christian revelation is indeed divine, but at some period (earlier +or later, according to the views of the disputant) it was corrupted +by man-made accretions and illusions. History is therefore opposed +to the Catholic Church: for History bears witness to the fact that +the Catholic Church as we know it is essentially man-made. But there +does underlie it some divine foundation, some moral revelation not +man-made.” (The limits of this acceptable minimum each individual +disputant fixes for himself.) + +(b) The Sceptical appeal to History--much the most formidable to-day, +and always intellectually the most respectable--speaks in much bolder +tones, thus: “The whole of the Catholic Faith from beginning to end +is man-made. It is a mass of illusions: of projections of the human +mind thrown by the human imagination upon the void; of deceptions, +some of them conscious in some degree, many more but half-conscious; +by far the most unconscious, implanted in the mind by early training. +What the Catholic Church affirms is false from beginning to end, and +History shows that the affirmations of the Catholic Faith have been +thus man-made step by step from the very first origins we can discover. +The idea of a God is man-made; so is the sacramental idea, the idea of +Incarnation--the whole affair.” + +Such, as it seems to me, are the historical arguments against the claim +of the Catholic Church to Divine Authority. Those arguments, tabulated +in the order of their importance, that is, of the power they wield +over a rational human mind fully open to evidence and to approaches of +reason, I will here set down in graphic form: + +I propose therefore to deal with them in their order, beginning with +the least and going on to the greatest. + + + + + IV + + +(I) THE MINOR OR MORAL ARGUMENT + +(a) _That the Church has been historically wrong upon a number of +facts: a Divine Authority would not go wrong in this fashion._ + + ⎧ ⎧ (a) The Catholic Church + ⎪ ⎪ has taught things later + ⎪ ⎪ proved erroneous--which + ⎪ ⎪ no Divine Authority would + ⎪ ⎪ do. + ⎪ I. The _Minor_ or Moral ⎫ ⎪ + ⎪ Argument from History ⎪ which ⎪ (b) The Catholic Church + ⎪ against the Catholic ⎬ says that ⎨ has taught things erroneous + ⎪ claim to Divine ⎪ ⎪ after she knew them to be + ⎪ Authority. ⎭ ⎪ erroneous--which no Divine + ⎪ ⎪ Authority would do. + History shows ⎪ ⎪ + the Catholic ⎪ ⎪ (c) The Catholic Church is + claim to Divine ⎨ ⎪ highly and increasingly + Authority to be ⎪ ⎪ organised--which no Divinely + false, by: ⎪ ⎩ Authorised body would be. + ⎪ + ⎪ ⎧ (a) (Protestant) The + ⎪ ⎪ Catholic Church can be + ⎪ ⎪ historically proved a mass + ⎪ II. The _Major_ or ⎫ ⎪ of man-made accretions upon + ⎪ Intellectual argument ⎪ which ⎪ an original basis morally + ⎪ from History against ⎬ says that ⎨ true. + ⎪ the Catholic claim to ⎪ ⎪ + ⎪ Divine Authority. ⎭ ⎪ (b) (Sceptical or Pagan) + ⎪ ⎪ The Catholic Church can be + ⎪ ⎪ historically proved to be + ⎪ ⎪ _wholly_ man-made in _all_ + ⎩ ⎩ its structure. + +We begin by defining what we mean by the words “the Church,” or that +body of pronouncement by the Church which we call “the Faith.” + +Manifestly, a corporate authority is not responsible for pronouncements +on which it has allowed divergence: manifestly, again, such an +authority is not responsible for pronouncements on which it has +allowed change without protest. Manifestly, it is not responsible +for pronouncements made not by itself through its admitted organs of +universal affirmation, but by certain of its body acting as individuals +or even as parts. + +I use the word “manifestly.” This may seem too strong a term in the +ears of those who have heard precisely these false arguments repeated +so often that the statement of their falsity sounds novel and strange. + +But if we examine the propositions closely, we shall see that this word +“manifestly” exactly and inevitably applies in the three cases. + +A particular body makes the awful claim to Divine Authority and +Infallibility. That claim may be false, and even ridiculous: but +“manifestly” it could not at the same time make the claim and make an +absolutely contradictory claim. For the word “body” substitute the +word “man”; let us suppose a particular man to come forward and say, +“I have Divine Authority to teach. On matters essential to ultimate +human happiness I can give replies which are infallibly true.” If such +a man were asked, “What do you think the weather will be to-morrow?” +or “What was the date of the Battle of Hastings?” and he were to +answer, “The weather may be this or that,” or “I cannot tell you when +the Battle of Hastings was fought, but I seem to remember that it was +on such and such a date,” he is not, when making such replies, acting +within the framework of his tremendous claim. If you say, “A man making +such a claim ought never to speak at all upon any subject save as an +infallible authority,” you are pre-supposing non-human conditions. +There is no sort of reason why such a man should not admit his doubts +or his ignorance in things not pertinent to his authority. There is +not even any reason why he should not say with regard to a particular +proposition, “You ask my definition in this matter: so far I have not +defined it; but I warn you that when I do define it I shall claim my +reply to be infallible.” If he so answer, then the hypotheses he may be +examining in the interval may be numerous and even contradictory one +to the other without their divergence affecting his claim. + +Tested by this very simple (and I think, conclusive) parallel, the +historical argument drawn from historical error attributable to the +Church fails. _If any man can give a particular instance in which a +specific affirmation has been made by those organs of affirmation +which the Church solemnly defines as hers, and can say what error, +historically proved, has since attached to such an affirmation then he +shall be met._ But no man has brought forward such a case. + +What such affirmation is to be found? The history is a long one; it +extends over nearly two thousand years. It is not difficult at all, +rather it is singularly easy and definite to say in any period, “Here +was the Church, these were its accredited organs of expression, and +this was a solemn affirmation of the Church, not of any individual or +of any part.” For instance, you can read the acts of the first Council +of Ephesus; it was œcumenical; it acted overtly under Papal authority. +Can you give a point therein defined which has been proved since to be +historically erroneous? or in the Council of Trent? or of the Fourth +Lateran? or of the Vatican? or of Nicæa? In which of them have you an +affirmation which History has disproved? There is none. The more you +contemplate that extraordinary historical phenomenon the more you will +be astonished by it. But I do not advance it as a proof of the Church’s +divine claim. I am here only concerned with the negative argument. +There has not been in point of fact any official affirmation proceeding +from the accredited organs of the Catholic Church--not one--from the +beginning to the present day, which has received historical disproof. + +Here it may be objected that such affirmations, solemnly pronounced +as the final decision of the Church, concern matters which are not of +their nature susceptible of historical disproof; they concern such +matters as the immortality of the soul, the personality of the Godhead, +its triune quality, the Incarnation, etc. In other words, since the +Church has not touched on historical matters but only on metaphysical, +she has preserved herself from attack upon those lines. + +In point of fact, the argument is not strictly conclusive, for there +are exceptional points--for instance, the Resurrection--in which the +Church might very well have been challenged by clear, overwhelming, +multiple, historical proof--and it has not been so challenged. But +take the contention for what it is (and in the main it is true) that +the Church, not having dealt with History but with transcendental +truth, has thus escaped historical error. It at least disposes of the +_historical_ argument against the Faith in that particular. We must +under this particular head--a minor one I admit--accept the fact that +the Faith has not proposed through its authoritative organs in any of +its definitions of dogma something which _History_ has disproved. + +But what of divergence, and what of change? + +As to divergence, the answer to me seems simple and brief. Where +divergence is admitted, and so long as it is admitted, infallible +pronouncement is neither claimed nor can be at work. The divergence +is openly between the judgments or affirmations of individuals or +of sections. If the Church, having definitely pronounced by the +voice of her head and of any of the great councils with which he +has been in communion and which have acted with his authority--the +Council of Nicæa, for instance--something which in a later age the +same authoritative organs had to deny in the face of new historical +evidence, then there would be a fundamental divergence and an +historical argument against the claim to Divine Authority. I repeat, as +I shall continue to repeat throughout this brief essay, the essential +point that the argument is negative. I am not affirming here, and for +the moment, that such consistency is proof of the divinity of the +claim--though it is certainly very remarkable; I am only pointing out +that the consistency _is_ present throughout History. You may say, if +you will, that it is present because even a human corporation claiming +infallibility would take great care never to contradict itself. Granted +(though I think it would have its work cut out)! But at least it must +be admitted that the consistency is there, and that, therefore, an +historical argument drawn from inconsistency does not lie. + +Now what of the more formidable argument drawn from change? It is not +to be doubted as an historical truth that in one era the general mood +of Christians with regard to a particular point lay in one direction, +in another era, in another. It is probable, for instance, that the +early Church expected the Second Advent in a more or less brief period. +It is certain that many holy men, perhaps repeating the mood of their +time, thought, in an earlier age, of the state of the dead as one of +sleep awaiting the Resurrection, with no definition of the Particular +Judgment, and so forth. In one period one devotion prevails; in +another, another. One great doctrine is emphasised in one era; another +in a later era. + +Here, then, is change. + +To which I answer that the change is never--has never been in any +particular instance which any historian can find and point out--a +change of doctrine. There has never been a definition, never a +pronouncement, by any organ of the Church, saying “This or that is so,” +of which such changes of mood have later compelled a retraction. + +Had we, for instance, in the early documents of the Church, a solemn, +definite Apostolic statement that Our Lord would come back to earth in +glory before the destruction of Jerusalem: had we any trace or echo of +a protest raised by some who, disappointed in the delay of their hopes, +laid their disappointment to the Apostles: had we any echo of voices in +the Apostolic or sub-Apostolic period saying, “Since He has not come +again we are deceived by the Church”--then the particular case I have +mentioned (and it is only one out of a great number) would be arguable. +But we have none such. + +Had we a solemn pronouncement registered, as of the Faith, that the +dead lay unliving and out of communion with us or with life as a whole +from the moment of their passing to the Resurrection of the Flesh, then +the statement that this was a contradiction with later defined doctrine +on the Particular Judgment and with our prayers for the dead, would be +arguable. But there has been no such pronouncement. + +In other words, change, in the sense of change of vague mood, has no +more historical weight in this department than the admitted divergence +between individuals or sections upon matters undefined. + +Before authority has spoken, authority has not committed itself. +When authority has spoken, contradiction must be established between +itself and itself: or there is no historical argument against the +claim of authority. You may say that there is no such argument only +because authority is careful not to contradict itself. Well and good; +but it remains true that the contradiction has not taken place, and +that therefore the historical argument based upon it fails. When or +if it shall apparently take place, there will be time to meet such +an argument in its apparent strength. But so far--and the period, +remember, is one far longer than that attached to any other defined +human institution--the argument does not apply. + +Now, though it is not logically connected with the strict process of +reason I am here developing, may I not ask the reader rhetorically once +more whether that is not in his eyes a very singular phenomenon? + +Here is an organised corporation, a strict society, which has +admittedly existed continuously for this prodigious length of time, +through extreme vicissitudes of knowledge and of ignorance, through +the most violent revolutions of human mood: a society which sprang +up in the brilliant light of Pagan antiquity and of the half-divine +Greek power of thought, and in the open majesty of the Empire, which +persisted through the darkest periods of our material ignorance, which +lived on through phases of gross popular credulity and equally gross +alternate phases of popular scepticism; which has been bathed in the +enthusiasm of the twelfth century, has gloried in the moral splendours +of the thirteenth, has struggled through the filth of our modern time; +has suffered the splendid temptations of the Renaissance; has next +found itself struggling with the base madnesses of Puritan assaults. +Through such endless variety of circumstance it has remained consistent +throughout that long, long term of centuries; centuries filled with +every conceivable reaction of the human mind, with gusts of enthusiasm +blowing from every point, each in exact contradiction to some other +earlier one. Through all these the institution which is historically +the oldest and the most permanent of political human things cannot be +discovered affected to change in any of its final pronouncements by +these human changes. It cannot be discovered in a contradiction. + +That such a phenomenon--wholly unique in the story of mankind--should +be of human origin is logically possible. It involves no contradiction +in terms. An unbroken tradition of rigid caution, coupled with +an unceasing consultation of record, might conceivably produce +such consistency by human agency alone and as the result of human +calculation. But the least we can say is that such an effect would be +different from anything we know of men and of their actions. + +(b) _That the Church has maintained error after knowing it to be error: +that it has lied._ + +The second charge under this head is that the Church has not only made, +in good faith, errors which she has had to retract, but has actually +relied on falsehood when she knew it to be falsehood and particularly +in the case of errors originally committed in good faith, but continued +with the deliberate intention to deceive. No Divine Authority would do +that. + +Now the value of such assertions--and they are frequently made--may be +tested _a fortiori_, by taking the two principal classical examples +upon which our opponents especially rely. It would be impossible to go +over the whole category of these assertions, for they touch innumerable +points. But since they all have in common one similar misunderstanding, +it will suffice to examine two with perhaps a brief allusion to another. + +These two chief examples I take to be the Donation of Constantine and +the eternal Galileo case. + +Though in each case the wrongful assertion against the Faith is based +on the same fundamental misunderstanding, yet each exemplifies one of +the two separate chief types of that misunderstanding. The accusation +in connection with the Donation of Constantine exemplifies the supposed +deliberate use of forgery by the Church: the Galileo case exemplifies +her supposed tenacity in demonstrated error--an authority claiming +infallibility and reluctant to admit that it has been clearly proved +fallible. + +Let us see how these two test cases come out of a close examination. + +It is asserted in the case of the Donation of Constantine that this +document was a forgery: that on that forgery was based a particular +doctrine, to wit, the supremacy of the see of Peter: that when it was +proved a falsehood the Church continued to defend it, and that, since +her spokesmen were compelled at last to abandon it, with it there fell +the necessary prop of the Papal contention. + +The Donation of Constantine is a document purporting to be a grant +by the Emperor Constantine to Pope Sylvester, his contemporary, of +civil jurisdiction over the town of Rome; of temporal sovereignty over +certain adjacent districts in Central Italy; of sundry ritual dignities +in dress and public office; of the Lateran Palace for a residence +in perpetuity; and with all this the recognition of the spiritual +jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome over the universal Church. + +It first appeared about the time when the French Monarchy was +supporting the Pope against his enemies and particularly against +Byzantium, and when that monarchy was preparing the way for being +declared the Empire of the West. It contains episodes which in a +critical age would clearly stamp it as unauthentic. There is a +ridiculous story of a dragon, for instance, which lived in a cave +under the Capitol. The Emperor Constantine is represented as receiving +baptism from the hands of St. Sylvester before he moved his capital to +Byzantium; whereas we now know that he did not receive baptism till +long after, and then not from the Pope, but from an Eastern Bishop. +It represents the Emperor as being cured by baptism of leprosy--a +disease which he certainly never had--and as making the donation out of +gratitude. + +The whole thing is manifestly mythical and legendary. But how does that +false character affect the claim of the Church to infallibility in +doctrine? + +To answer that question we must begin by granting all those points, +both doubtful and actually false, which our opponents advance as +historical fact; for we shall see that even with the fullest admission +of their imaginary facts, that case has not a leg to stand upon. + +They tell us that the document was a forgery (that is, a falsehood) +produced with deliberate intent to support a novel claim upon the +part of the Papacy. It is in fact nothing of the sort. It is a +conglomeration of legend, arisen for the most part in Syria, the growth +of which can be traced through the centuries. The weight of evidence +would show that it was accepted as true, not first in Rome, but in +Northern France--the policy of whose monarch it exactly suited. It +was first quoted, not in Rome, but in Rheims. It was not brought in +to support the Papal claims even in temporal sovereignty, let alone +in spiritual jurisdiction, till long after even the temporal claims +had been universally admitted throughout the West, and the spiritual +jurisdiction, of course, for centuries. Though not authentic, it does +contain an important substratum of truth. It is pretty evident that +the Pope obtained increased jurisdiction in Rome after the transfer +of Imperial authority to the East. It is virtually certain that the +Lateran Palace became his official residence about the same time, and +though we have not sufficient record of the steps whereby the Papal +Government gradually came to administrate the Roman district in the +place of the Byzantine Government, which had less and less real power +there (especially after the Iconoclastic quarrel), yet we do know that +such jurisdiction was exercised long before we find any mention of the +Donation. + +But, I repeat, for the purpose of my argument it is better to grant to +our opponents not only what is doubtful, but what is certainly false +in their supposed facts. Granted that the Donation was a forgery, that +it had for its evil purpose the artificial support of novel temporal +powers in the see of Rome, and even of confirming the ancient and +universally admitted spiritual supremacy: what then? How would such +historical facts, if they were true (which they are not), militate +against Catholic doctrine? Catholic doctrine in the matter may be very +simply stated. You will find it expressed everywhere by all competent +authorities over a prodigious lapse of time in words almost identical; +for it is as clear as it is brief. That doctrine is as follows: + +Our Lord constituted the Apostolic College. Of that College he gave +Peter the Primacy. This Primacy by divine constitution successively +attached to the sees which Peter founded, first at Jerusalem, then at +Antioch, finally at Rome. Its power lies not in the fact that Rome was +the capital of the ancient world, but in the fact that St. Peter chose +it for his final see. This Primacy of the see of Rome is superior to, +and more universal than, its patriarchate of the West. + +Now against that doctrine historical argument must show that Primacy +was not recognised until the Donation, if the Donation be the argument +in force. + +There are many other historical arguments, of course, brought to bear +against the original Primacy of Rome; but I am examining the very +strong example of the Donation as a test case. Take any one of the +innumerable textbooks in which the fixed and accredited doctrine is +laid down, and examine the chain of evidence, not indeed as to the +divine institution of the Papacy (for that is a matter of faith, not +of History), but as to the original Primacy of Rome, as admitted by +Christians, which is a matter of History, not of faith. + +The chain reaches down to the very beginnings of our society. One of +our most formidable opponents[1] puts what he calls the “first step in +Papal aggression” as early as St. Clement--that is, within a lifetime +of the Crucifixion. Others may propose later dates; but no one with a +pretence to elementary historical knowledge would postpone it to the +ninth century, when the Donation of Constantine (in its present form) +appeared. All Church history is full of Roman Primacy from the moment +when Church history becomes open to detailed examination. It is implied +in the procedure of the earliest councils; it is openly alluded to in +act after act, as the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries proceed. If you +would call it a corruption, you must put the origin of that corruption +very early; indeed, you will be compelled to put it within the lifetime +of those who had talked familiarly with the Apostles and knew their +mind and all the tradition of the very beginnings of the Church. The +Donation of Constantine was no more the foundation of this Primacy of +Rome than the Revolution of 1688 was the foundation of the House of +Lords in England, or than Lincoln’s Presidential pronouncements during +the Civil War were the foundation of the Presidency of the United +States. + +But may it not be said that those who spoke for the Church as +historians claimed the Donation to be authentic long after it had been +questioned? Undoubtedly they did. And it would have been astonishing, +or rather incredible, if they had not, for everybody then thought +the Donation genuine. _But no doctrine was based on it._ In the same +way everybody, Catholic and non-Catholic, accepts the ecclesiastical +history of the Venerable Bede as genuine, and we use it in support of +the connection between the English Church and Rome. But if it were +proved a forgery to-morrow, the thesis of union between the English +Church and Rome would remain. But they did not claim it after it +had been definitely proved to be legendary; and the very fact that +they officially admitted their error and confirmed their admission +in final fashion is an excellent example of the difference between +fallibility as expressed in doctrinal falsehood and the misapprehension +of historical fact. It is an excellent example of a universal truth +present throughout all the history of the Church, that the Church +brings reason to bear upon every problem, and regards reason in its own +sphere as absolute. + +The first criticisms of the Donation are of the fifteenth century, +coming from Peacock, Bishop of Chichester, and Valla in Italy. They +make no pretence to being heretical; they have no connection with any +effort to destroy the unity of the Church; they are not particularly +convincing--especially the latter.[2] What exploded the Donation of +Constantine as an historical document was a much longer process of +examination and criticism, which does not reach its final conclusions +till the seventeenth century. During that process you will find many +who, after the breakdown of unity in the sixteenth century, were +frankly enemies of the Church from without, not historical critics +from within, using the unauthenticity of the Donation as a weapon for +attacking the whole Catholic scheme; but I doubt if you will find one +case of a believer who regarded the gradual establishment of the truth +as in any way shaking the doctrine of Papal supremacy. Yet you have +plenty of critics within the Catholic Church examining the problem in +full liberty, and permitted to come to a right decision upon it. You +have to-day, and you will have throughout the centuries to come, an +indefinitely large body of men with the fullest historical confidence, +great scholars and experts in this particular point, who are fully +convinced of the legendary character of the Donation, and yet to whose +minds it is inconceivable (as I confess it is to mine) that anyone +should think the establishment of that historical detail a cause for +doubt in the plain and most ancient doctrine of Roman supremacy with +which it was for some six centuries out of twenty adventitiously +connected. + +Now for the Galileo case. It is so continually quoted, it is so much +the accepted type of such things, that I might be tempted to go into it +at greater length; on the contrary, I shall deal with it more briefly, +because the points at issue are as restricted as they are evident, and +the complete misunderstanding upon which the accusation is based may be +exposed by the most elementary statement of it. + +The accusation runs thus: “Galileo, having discovered by indubitable +physical proof the motion of the earth, was condemned by the Catholic +Church for stating the same, and her condemnation remained in force +until the nineteenth century, when she was compelled to allow the +matter to lapse.” + +That assertion, the commonest made in all this department of +historical attack upon the Faith, contains two elementary and decisive +historical errors. First, the error that Galileo was condemned for +teaching a then novel particular doctrine which he proved true; +secondly, the error that Galileo was condemned by authority of the +Catholic Church upon a point of doctrine: that is, that the Catholic +Church affirmed in the seventeenth century by her Infallible Authority +as a point in doctrine that the earth did not move. + +In point of fact, Galileo’s condemnation did not turn upon his teaching +a demonstrated truth, for it was not yet demonstrated. It did not +turn upon a novel idea in Astronomy, but upon an hypothesis which was +already hoary before Galileo was born; and the condemnation was not +originated against the idea as an hypothesis, but against the teaching +of it as an established fact. So much for point _one_. + +Next, as to point _two_, the condemnation did not proceed from the +Catholic Church. It proceeded from a particular disciplinary organ +of the Catholic Church, with no authority whatsoever for finally +establishing a point in doctrine. To confuse it with Catholic +definition of doctrine would be like confusing the definition of a +New York court of justice with an amendment to the Constitution. The +Pope himself, as it happened, forbade what would have been a grave +error--though not one binding the Church--I mean, a full definition +of heresy by the inquisitors upon the matter. But all that is neither +here nor there. There was no definition binding upon Christians, and +has been none, nor ever will be in such a purely mechanical affair. +What there _was_ was disciplinary action against a man who had done +everything he could to provoke the constituted authorities of religion +by querulous and bitter insult (he was a difficult character), a +man who was unable to support his own statements in court (nothing +he brought forward at his trial came near to being conclusive on +the motion of the earth, and much that he brought forward was +fantastic),[3] and the action came at the end of an upheaval in which, +by exactly this kind of irrational, angry attitude in graver matters, +the unity of Christendom had been destroyed. No wonder the authorities +had grown touchy. Moreover, as anyone may see who reads the trial (and +as Huxley saw), Galileo could not prove his case. It was still only an +hypothesis. + +The theory that the earth was not fixed, but turning on its axis and +moving round the sun, had not only been familiar (as I have said) +to educated[4] Europe from long before Galileo was born, but had +been taught with clerical approval _as an hypothesis_ in Catholic +universities; it was taught again in such universities not long after +the Galileo trial as evidence accumulated, and became a commonplace of +all teaching in Catholic schools and colleges long before the expunging +of the Galilean treatise from the Index--always, and necessarily, a +lengthy process. + +The whole attack on the Church in connection with Galileo turns upon +these two misunderstandings, of which the first is unessential, but +the second capital: First, that a proved scientific fact was at issue; +secondly, that this proved scientific fact was denied, because it was +novel, and was denied by that authority which alone throughout the +centuries had been held competent to establish points of doctrine, +the Papacy and the councils of the Church over which it spiritually +presides. The first is wrong and the second is wrong. The Copernican +theory was not novel in Galileo’s time; it was still only a theory. +His condemnation accuses him of returning to the _oldest_ conception +(Pythagorean). He was not condemned by the Church, and the instance of +his condemnation, such as it was, by the appointed committee, was his +persistence in teaching as a proved fact what was still only hypothesis. + +Before leaving this overemphasised historical detail, I would like +to make clear to the modern reader what our modern confused habit of +mind often fails to grasp: the difference between teaching a thing +as demonstrated fact and teaching it as hypothesis, coupled with the +difference between teaching demonstrated fact and teaching metaphysical +or doctrinal conclusions supposedly, but erroneously, dependent upon +that fact. + +For that purpose I will choose a debate familiar to all our +contemporaries: the discussion on the origins of the human body. + +In the last eighty years a very large and increasing body of evidence +has been accumulated which points to the probability of the human +body’s having come out of some original sub-human type, a sort of +cousin to (though not descended from) the greater anthropoids of our +own day. + +It may be so. There is nothing in such an hypothesis against any +Catholic doctrine. On the other hand, it is not proved. Still less +is it proved that the process was of an inevitable sort unconnected +with divine Creative Will. Least of all is it proved--and indeed, it +cannot be proved, for the thing is manifestly contradictory to our +senses--that man as we know him is not a fixed type, utterly different +in quality from the beasts. + +Now this hypothesis is almost universally stated to-day as a +demonstrated fact--which as yet it most certainly is not; indeed, the +guesses at the process continue to change year by year, as anyone can +see for himself by looking up the common manuals of forty, thirty, +twenty and ten years ago. + +Further, there is quite commonly tacked on to it a second statement, +that the so-called demonstrated fact disproves a cardinal Catholic +doctrine, to wit, the Fall of Man. + +Now then, supposing a professor avowedly subject to the Catholic +discipline, professing in a Catholic society, were to teach (1) that +the descent of the human body was what the last of our many successive +guesses presumes it to be, and were to teach that as now certain and +indubitable fact, comparable to the fact of the rotundity of the earth; +(2) that this origin of the human body destroyed the Catholic doctrine +of Original Sin. That professor would be condemned exactly as Galileo +was condemned. He would be condemned not because the Church desired +to assert that the human body was _not_ of such hypothetical origin, +but because he had taught as certain what was uncertain; and he would +be condemned upon the infinitely more important second point (which +plain reason is sufficient to establish) that even if the hypothesis +were already established by indubitable proof, it could not affect in +any way the dogma of the Fall of Man: they are on different planes and +concerned with totally different subjects. + +The doctrine of the Fall of Man is a transcendental doctrine. +It affirms that man in his completed nature was intended for a +supernatural state, that his free-will rebelled against the will of God +and that on this account his nature is _fallen_ from a supernatural +to a natural condition. To such a doctrine the discovery--if ever +it should be made--as to _how_ the body came to be is utterly +indifferent. If I say, “Young Smith was right enough till he took to +drinking,” it is no answer to tell me that Young Smith was once a baby +who could not take to any evil, that he gradually grew up, and the +whole process was one of increase and maturing, a “progress,” and that +_therefore_ Young Smith _can’t_ have taken to drink. That “can’t” is +nonsensical. The process of becoming full grown is no bar to a moral +fall. + +So much for the second of the moral arguments drawn from History. Let +me turn to the third: That the Church cannot be divine because it is +highly organised, with defined dogmas, a hierarchy, a whole machinery +of rites and laws, whereas a divinely inspired thing would remain free +and simple. + +(c) _That the Church is organised, therefore not of divine character._ + +This last or third point made against the Church is one which haunts +the greater part of modern minds with singular persistence. It is odd +that it should do so; because, of all historical objections made to the +Church, this is the least reasonable. But it is characteristic of the +day in which we live that emotion should take the place of reason and +a certain emotional bias towards an indefinite enthusiasm (as in music) +is a modern disease. + +The objection is that the Church is organised, whereas whatever is +of divine authority on earth must (so it is presumed) be of a vague, +inspirational sort without organisation or framework--loose, attaching +to the heart and imagination rather than to the intelligence. Such is +the premise--and it is an enormity. + +For let it be supposed that there be upon earth one particular defined +Divine Authority--such is the Church’s claim--how would it necessarily +act and be? What would of necessity be its structure? + +The reply is no _positive_ argument in favour of that claim, but it +is a conclusive _negative_ argument in proof of the contention that +_if_ such a claim be true, then organisation and, as time proceeded, +more and more minute and detailed organisation, would be an absolutely +inevitable condition of action by such an authority. + +For consider carefully what the implications of such an authority are? + +Here we are on earth, possessed of certain general instincts of right +and wrong--instincts commonly proceeding to very warped effects in +action. We are surrounded by an infinity of varying circumstances; our +lives are brief; our power of intercommunication between individual +minds is limited. Granted that there be some _Corpus_--some definable +get-at-able person, place, or thing--from which absolute conclusions +may be accepted; then that thing must be in the form of a society +or otherwise it could not be continuous; it could not survive among +ephemeral beings; it must have rules, or it could not bind beings +imperfectly communicating; it must have habits, for it must be a living +organism. Societies cannot live without differentiation of function +and definition thereof; separation of one activity from another; +subordination in command; laws more and more defined; known symbols; +ritual. If anything were designed to act as an institution with divine +authority among men--there might be no such design nor any such +institution--but, I say, _supposing_ there be such, then whatever was +to act in this fashion must be a society, for it must be continuous; +must be corporate, in order to overcome the imperfect connection +between individual minds; must tend to more and more complete +definition in its character and being as time proceeds: for otherwise +it would not have a human framework consonant to the human world for +which it would be designed. + +Leave men in doubt as to who is and who is not a member of such +a society; let it be uncertain by what tests membership may be +recognised, acquired or lost, and the whole character and personality +of the divinely appointed Thing disappears: with personality disappears +the faculty of diction, of affirmation, for which (by definition) it +was conceived. And, indeed, so you find the Church from its origins: +sacraments at once appearing, communion and excommunion, doctrine more +and more defined as the generations pass and doubts or controversies +arise, ritual embryonically present at its very outset and rapidly +stabilised: from the beginning you have it certainly hierarchic, +disciplined, bound in a strict framework: and still more certainly +(if that be possible) it shows limitation or outline, a frontier, a +boundary--whereby any man may test who is within and who is without the +Church. + +And if this be true of structure, it is still more obviously true +of doctrine. Granted that there be such a society with a claim to +infallible pronouncement upon the things essential to the satisfaction +of the human soul, how can it proceed save by exact definition of its +pronouncements? + +Begin with the vague and general, though perhaps intense, conviction +that the soul survives death. Regard it not as a product of affection +or of habit. Accept the mere intuition. What then? Does it survive as +a person or not? The thing is debatable. If it does not survive as a +person, what connection is there between its survival and good or evil +conduct in this life? If it does survive as a person, how can such +survival hold of our personality, which, being human, is manifestly of +this changeable and material world? + +If it be said that no answer can be given to these questions, then we +deny the existence of such an authority as I here presume. I do not say +that these questions and the replies to them are a proof of the truth +of such authority. I say that on the hypothesis that such an authority +is to be found on earth, then necessarily it must of its very nature +_define_ doctrine upon such matters as these, pronouncement upon which +is its whole reason for being. + +As each controversy of importance arises some new definition will +necessarily be demanded of the authority. Therefore, though doctrine +itself does not grow--for it concerns truths outside time--definition +of doctrine will grow. The time in which we live has so largely lost +the habit of clear thought that I must here admit a digression in order +to emphasise and put in the sharpest light the difference between the +growth of _doctrine_ and the growth of _definition_. + +Whenever a new definition is given by the Church--e.g., the definition +of Infallibility in 1870, the definition of Transubstantiation in +1215--confused thinkers, or men who have not read the proceedings, +will assert that a new doctrine has been invented. A little attention +to what passes at the time of such definitions should be enough to set +them right. The whole debate turns upon the proof that the doctrine was +present from the beginning and that innovation lies in the denial of +it. The definition is a new thing to meet a new attack upon an ancient +truth. The truth is aboriginal. Definition no more makes new doctrine +than does a new treatise on geometry make new mathematical truth. Such +matters are expounded and elucidated in increasing volume; they are not +invented. So it is with the Faith. + +From this, turn to another consequence of this objection to +_organisation_ in the Church: the objection that its machinery and +instruments of action are continually unworthy, base, insufficient, +affected by worldly motives, and that therefore the claim of the Church +to be divine fails. + +That the Church being organised and being human will suffer from +defects inherent to all organisation and to all humanity is equally +certain. There will be bad administrators, wicked men in holy charges, +abuse of powers. But that is no answer to the claim of the Church. For +consider--what is the alternative? + +Supposing there be upon earth a definite body of some +kind--corporation, society, officer, what you will: a definable +existent _Thing_ whereto men may turn for ultimate and certain +pronouncements upon the chief matters of their concern (that is, the +nature of man and his destiny). If that Thing, whatever form it were +to be given, were _not_ organised, then must affirmation clash with +affirmation and whatever were common to all would divide into a mere +vague mood. + +Now such a mood does not fulfill the requirements of the _Thing_ in +question. You may indeed say (the vast majority of English-speaking +people are saying it to-day) that true religion is of this vague kind; +an instinctive aspiration to unity with the Divine Will; most would +even put it lower still and say “to unity with nature or the universe.” +They therefore feel that all attempts to systematise this aspiration, +to regulate the enthusiasm, to define particular dates and cases, to +set up the machinery of a society with laws, officials and decision, +is a warping of the only true living and direct religious impulse: and +certainly if that original and vague religious impulse in man be the +only true religion and if its value be in proportion to its vagueness, +then organisation is a warping and a lessening of it. + +But remember that in making this statement you are denying at the +outset the possibility of an authority and therefore contradicting the +very affirmation you make of some certain common truth in religion. For +any authority beyond mere individual emotion (which changes in each +individual and varies indefinitely among many individuals) must have a +power of definition, must act with a function, and therefore must be +organised in some degree. + +The choice is unavoidable between organisation in that which can speak +with authority and the rejection of all claim to authority--which +is the rejection of all common or general certitude on matters not +immediately and universally apparent. In plain words, either you must +admit organisation in your religion or say that no religion is true. + +I would like to make this argument quite clear, because the great +majority of our contemporaries, at least in the English-speaking world, +fail to make acquaintance with it. I do not say organisation proves +the truth of the contention that the Church in particular is divine. +I say that _if_ there be such a thing as a divine Church on earth, +that Church will be increasingly organised as the ages proceed, will +perpetually define and re-define, will establish strict tests and will +maintain its vitality by excluding what is not consonant to its nature; +it will operate through differentiation of function as does every other +living thing. It will have a multitudinous co-ordination of detail in +proportion to the exaltation of its status, for only thus can it be +alive with the supremely conscious life of the highest organisms. + +I say again, this is not an argument to the effect that organisation is +a witness to divinity in the Church. It is an argument to the effect +that _if_ divinity speaks through any society, _then_ the oracle of +truth will present all the phenomena of organisation; and so far from +these phenomena clashing with the religious instinct, they alone can +give that instinct its full working value. + +In other words, you admit or you deny a Church. If you deny it, there +is no certain source of truth present amid mankind; for the religious +emotion of each man changes perpetually, and the emotions of each among +so many millions differ from those of his neighbour. But if there be +a Church, then organisation must necessarily be the very test of its +reality, as it is the test of all the higher forms of life we know. + +When, therefore, we Catholics meet, as we do daily and in a thousand +forms, such objections as: “If this dogma were true, it would be +universally apparent”; “If that doctrine were part of the universal +truth, it would not be arrived at by special conclaves of particular +men fulfilling highly defined functions and even dressed in a peculiar +manner of their own”; “This elaborate definition of the Real Presence +jars with true devotion to the Eucharist, which is a thing of the heart +and a mystery beyond analysis,” and so forth, in a myriad different +forms of objection, we reply: “If, of mysteries such as the Eucharist +or the continued life of man after death, or of the more familiar +mysteries of personality, of time, of eternity, we have no definitions, +then falsehood can be present and received as truth. There is indeed no +need to define, so long as all are implicitly agreed; but the moment +one says (of the Eucharist, for instance), ‘There is a Presence here +but it is spiritual only; the bread remains,’ then must, of necessity, +the claimer to infallible truth (unless she is to nullify her own +claim) lay down whether that proposition be true or not: whether the +bread remains, or does not remain, after consecration. Otherwise +two members of a society existing to teach true doctrine will, on a +fundamental and essential doctrine, be holding two contrary views, one +of which at least must be false.” + +It would be easy to point to any number of other cases of more interest +to the average modern man than the case of the Eucharist, in which he +has lost all communion; for instance, to the mystery of immortality, +and the discipline rather than the doctrine of our attitude towards +the dead. Two members of this society claiming infallibility are +faced with the practice of necromancy, the calling up of the dead (a +favourite pastime of our day among the wealthy). The one feels in the +strongest fashion that in this exercise he is upon the confines of +positive evil. He smells the Pit. The other is convinced that it is +indeed the blessed dead who visit him and with whom he is in communion. + +Which is right? The infallible authority cannot abdicate in such a +crux without denying its own claim. There is no reconciliation of such +a contradiction: it is Hell or Heaven. It must define and it does +define; and we know on which side its definition lies. Necromancy--or +Spiritualism as its modern name goes--is of Hell. + +In general, then, the moral arguments against the Church as drawn from +History--that is, from the record of its action--fail from one of two +causes: either they misconceive the nature of the Church (_what_ it is +that speaks with Infallible Authority; _on what_ it has spoken with +Infallible Authority), or they are confused as to the implications of +religion, not perceiving that, if you are to admit any criterion of +truth other than that of common experience, you must admit external +authority; and that, once you admit an external authority in the final +and all important questions, you admit a Church. + +Such considerations do not establish the claim of the Catholic Church, +but they destroy certain particular objections to that claim, drawn +from the supposed clash between the moral character of the Church’s +claim and the historical record of the Church making such a claim. + +From these I turn to what I have called the major objection of modern +times: the intellectual objection; the objection that History shows the +structure of the Catholic Church to have proceeded from man. + + +II. THE MAJOR OR INTELLECTUAL ARGUMENT + +The last and much the most important division of the arguments based +upon History against the Catholic claim is, in general, the argument +that the Church cannot be the divine thing it claims to be because it +is in its essence demonstrably man-made: it is in its essence, and can +be proved by History to be, of human institution, betraying all those +characteristic illusions which man conjures up and imposes upon himself +in all his efforts to reach out to the unknowable and unattainable of +his desire. + +This--by far the most serious historical form of attack upon the +Faith--falls into two distinct branches, which I will call for the sake +of brevity (without pretence to the full accuracy of the terms and +certainly with no intention of using them abusively) the _Protestant_ +and the _Pagan_. I mean by the _Protestant_ argument that argument +against the Faith drawn from History which maintains that the Church +has suffered fundamental corruption and has lost some presupposed +original character through the increasing delusions of the human mind. +I call the _Pagan_ or purely Sceptical argument that which denies, on +the testimony of History, that there ever has been a divine Church at +all, or any clear revelation of divine things to men at any time or in +however simple a form, and proposes to prove that all the doctrine of +the Church is of man’s own making. + +These two I will take successively, maintaining the order I have +throughout, to wit, attending to the least important before approaching +the more important. + +I take it that in the times in which we live the Protestant objection, +even in its vaguest form, is the less formidable. I shall take it +first. I shall conclude with what is, in my own judgment, far the most +formidable attack at this moment, and likely to become still more +formidable in the near future, the Pagan or purely Sceptical attack: +the argument from History that _all_ religion is man-made, that the +Catholic Church must be included in the category of man-made things, +and that therefore the Catholic Church has no claim to Divine Authority. + + +(a) _The Protestant argument from History._ + +Throughout the story of the Catholic Church, i.e. during all the last +nineteen hundred years,[5] there have continued recurrent protests +against this or that doctrine: recurrent affirmations that some other +doctrine, contrary to the authoritative definition, is true, and that +the authoritative definition is itself false. From these denials and +affirmations have proceeded what are called, in Catholic terminology, +the various heresies. + +But towards the end of the Middle Ages these protests gathered together +in a new form, which was essentially an appeal to History, and to +their general character was applied the term “Protestant.” We need not +quarrel over the term or its derivation. It has been, by universal +agreement, applied during the last four hundred years. + +The Protestant challenge to the Catholic Faith is essentially a +challenge based upon History. It proposes to show by historical +evidence that whereas there was some original body of true revelation, +this has been distorted, corrupted and overlaid, and that the Catholic +Church with its perpetual accretions of doctrine, ritual and office is +more and more divergent from, or even contrary to, the divine original +thus presupposed. + +The Protestant argument still exists even when it is put in its most +vague and tenuous modern form. Even those who say, as do so many to-day +(believing themselves to be pure sceptics), “I accept the mission of +Jesus Christ as salutary to mankind and as containing eternal verities, +which it is essential that man for his good should know; but I reject +all supernatural statements in connection with this mission,” are still +essentially Protestants.[6] They presuppose some original nucleus, +however restricted on content and in time, which they postulate as good +and true. + +The most extreme case--and to-day the most common one--the case of the +man who says he takes the four canonical Gospels, and these alone; +that he rejects Pauline theology as a corruption, a man-made thing +proceeding from the man Paul; that he rejects in the Gospels themselves +every element which affirms or implies the miraculous powers of Jesus +Christ, His claim to divinity, His Resurrection and the rest, is still +a Protestant case. He affirms that the Sermon on the Mount (to which +he is oddly attached) and sundry general propositions upon humility, +charity and other Catholic virtues, are good: and in saying that they +are good he is saying that they are true. His quarrel is not with the +whole Catholic scheme, but with everything in the Catholic scheme +beyond what he has chosen for himself out of the mass of Catholic +teaching.[7] + +Now let us put down at the beginning of the debate one common element +upon which all should be agreed: there _has_ been development; and in +so far as development involves change, there has been in that sense, +and in that alone, change. What is more, the development continues, and +in so far as the word “change” may be applied to development, change +continues.[8] + +The definitions of the Council of Trent are immensely more elaborate +than the Apostles’ Creed; the Apostles’ Creed (probably dating from the +earliest origins of the Church though it does, and at the latest, in +its essentials, a second-century Roman form) has more exact definition +in it than the Gospel; the ritual of the Mass is not identical in every +place; it is not identical through time. The Liturgy at once expanded +and crystallised as the generations proceeded. Even within the brief +space of a few centuries it is possible to point to portions of the +Roman Mass (to take but one form) which began as voluntary or optional +prayers and which became incorporated in the regular structure of +the Sacrifice. One might even say that certain slight additions of +quite recent origin may, in the near future, follow the same course. +The bishop, the priest and the deacon of the original Church formed +a far simpler body than does the vast organisation of the Hierarchy +to-day, and new special worships of this saint or that, new shrines, +and all the rest continually arise. The argument in no way turns upon +either side (for men of intelligence or information) on so obvious and +elementary a truth as that such development exists. It is common ground +upon which both must proceed. Where they differ is upon the point +whether or no such development has introduced a fundamental change of +character into the Catholic Church with the passage of the centuries. + +A parallel will explain what I mean. Two men observe a tree. One says, +“It is an oak, in full vigour”; the other says, “No, it was of oaken +origin, but there has been grafted upon it another growth and the whole +is thus not only warped and transformed, but in my eyes diseased. It is +not an oak.” + +The first man, who says, “It is a living oak consonant in all its +parts,” does not deny that the acorn is different from the mature tree: +the young sapling different in form from either the original acorn or +the tree as it now appears. He does not deny that in a hundred years +the form of the tree will seem to have changed still more; that in the +fifty years past it has changed. What he denies is that there has been +any change in that by which an oak is an oak. It is essentially the +thing which it has always been. That is his contention. Its growth is +normal to its nature, and in so far as growth involves change, such +change is the very proof of identity. + +His opponent denies this. He says it was an oak once, long ago, but +other plants grafted on it have so changed its nature that it can be +called an oak no longer. + +The appeal of the one is not to a supposed dead mechanical rigidity; +it is not an affirmation that he has before him an acorn rather than +an oak; it is to that principle of one-ness by which any thing is what +it is. The appeal of his opponent is not to the mere fact of change +(at least he must be very unintelligent if that process destroy in +his eyes all essential unity in the developing thing); it is rather +to the proposition that the changes were of a disfiguring and (to +borrow a foreign word) “denaturing” kind. The one says, “Here is the +same original organism, in full health and strength, growing and +vigorous before our eyes.” The other says, “These changes, which I can +substantiate by the consultation of old pictures and written records of +the thing, are a proof of disease and of corruption.” + +It is therefore quite beside the mark for the opponents, upon +historical grounds, of some particular institution essential to the +Catholic Church--for instance, the Primacy of Peter--to prove by +elaborate reference to record that the Papal power under St. Clement +was embryonic compared with the Papal power under Innocent III. It is +quite beside the mark to bring forward, at too much pains, evidence on, +say, the doctrine of the Real Presence to prove that its definition in +the Council of Trent is far more elaborate, exclusive and exact than +the statement of it in Justin Martyr, fourteen hundred years earlier. +The point is that the one party to the controversy regards such +change--if you like to call it change--as an inevitable and salutary +phenomenon of life and a very proof of unity in character and time: +the other, as a phenomenon opposed to the true life of the thing and a +proof of its loss of identity with its original principle of life. + +Now in my view there are two tests which one may apply to what I have +called the Protestant argument from History: two tests by which one may +discover that it rings false. And these I would tabulate as follows: + +(1) The test of Innovation. + +(2) The test of Critical Date. + +By the test of Innovation I mean an historical examination to discover +whether orthodox doctrine--not points doubtful or still controversial +within the Catholic body, but defined truth--as propounded by the +Catholic Church upon any given matter, at any given moment, had the +character of an innovation, contrasting in essence with the development +of the past; or whether on the contrary it was the denial of such +doctrine, the counter-affirmation provoking such definition, which bore +this character of innovation and novelty. If the first view be the true +one, then the Catholic Church, false or true, has at least been in +all its life one personality consistent with its own essence, and the +successive definitions have all been in the line of tradition. But if +the opposing view be established, then indeed corruption and error and +therefore the absence of her Infallible Authority have been proved. + +As to what I have called the test of Critical Date, I mean (what should +be surely an obvious truth) that if the story has been a process of +warping and corruption, there should be some discoverable stage at +which this deflection began, and if the fixing of this stage be not +only doubtful, but disputed in a hundred forms and set at widely +separated epochs, differing by centuries, then the objection is +ill-founded. + +I would not be so pedantic and at the same time so logically weak as to +demand of my opponent the fixing of a particular instant in which he +discovers error originating. All such things, whether true developments +or corruptions, take place in time; none springs up apparent in a +single moment. All grow. But I do say that if a plain historical +phenomenon of corruption has taken place in this or that--for example, +the doctrine of the Eucharist--its inception must be observable within +at least a certain range of years, a generation at the most. Such is +the test of Critical Date. + +I will now examine the matter by both these tests: Innovation and +Critical Date. + +(1) As to the first test, it is historically true--and once again, a +very strange thing--that in every single case it is the protest against +orthodoxy which has had the character of an innovation, and never the +orthodox affirmation which has appeared as a novelty. + +I will explain in a moment how an attempt might be made by our +opponents to get over even this difficulty; but at any rate, as far +as plain History is concerned, that remarkable fact which I have just +stated is true. + +You may take the whole list, from Cerinthus, who was a contemporary +of the Apostles, down to Brigham Young and his Mormons, or to the +latest Modernist, and you find in every case without exception the +test working true. The heresiarch (as we Catholics call him) or the +reformer, or prophet, or whatever other flattering term you may like +to use in contra-distinction to heresiarch, appears as an innovator +to the generation whom he disturbs, or to which he appeals. His +doctrine comes as a _new_ doctrine, with all the shock and also all +the appeal of novelty. There is not any one case in the long story +of the Church where we can trace a steady protest against _any_ one +of her fundamental doctrines, a protest appearing at the origins +and increasing as the doctrine is more and more clearly defined. Nor +is there any one case of a definition of orthodox doctrine appearing +suddenly and with all the effect of an innovation. No doubt each +reformer makes the claim that he has rediscovered the old original +truth, long overlaid, but my point is that, when he and his doctrine +appear, it is _they_--not the things they oppose--which invariably +appear as sharp and, to most men, offensive novelties. + +I have called that phenomenon in the story of the Catholic Church +remarkable; it is even startling. I know of no other society to which +this aspect of reform or re-action applies. If you will consider for +a moment the psychology of the affair, judging it by your personal +knowledge of the way in which your own mind works, and the minds of the +men about you, you will, I think, perceive its unique character. + +After all, what happens in our minds with regard to any form of +degradation? For instance, what happens to-day with regard to a +misquotation in literature or a warping of function in politics? + +The first misquotation takes place, and is challenged. The bad habit +grows, but it is still challenged here and there: the challenge is +maintained. Each time it is challenged the error is admitted, but +unfortunately spreads. Sometimes there comes at the end of the process +a violent re-action; literary men swarm together (as it were) and +insist upon the misquotation being driven out; and sometimes they +succeed. + +Or again, as to the warping of a political institution. Representative +institutions were founded to be representative. People soon find out +that they are only imperfectly representative: that they tend to +represent the avarice or vanity of the individual delegates much more +than the mandate of those who sent them to the representative assembly. +What happens? Immediate protest; repeated protest; attempts at reform. +Sometimes the reform makes good, the fear of God is put into the +politicians, and the representative institution is purged and brought +up with a round turn, and compelled to do its duty. + +You may take the whole range of human action in this respect, and you +will invariably find a process of this kind. It is common sense. Men do +not allow their conception of a thing to be deflected by falsehood or +laziness or illusion without sharply re-acting against that deflection. +All History is full of the corruption of institutions--and of men; but +all History is most emphatically _not full_--in fact, in all History +you will not find an example--of the corruption taking place without +its being noted and resisted. + +Now here, in the case of Catholic doctrine, you have the singular fact +that the process is the other way about. There is no protest till after +the doctrine has become fixed. Take the case of the doctrine of the +Incarnation. Whether true or false, it is certainly present before +Cerinthus. The man who most violently combats Cerinthus’ statement +that Our Lord suffered as man and not as God is one of our Lord’s own +companions, St. John--a witness who had known Our Lord on earth, which +Cerinthus never had. That is no proof that the doctrine is true; but it +is proof of the historic fact that Apostolic society believed in the +doctrine and that the first heresy in the matter was an innovation. + +Or take the doctrine of the Eucharist. For centuries the Real Presence +was accepted; in general terms, it is true, but accepted none the less. +You get it unmistakably from the Words of Institution right on for +a thousand years. You can argue against the _intention_ of the early +statements based upon the words of institution. You can say that those +who first alluded to the Eucharist did not intend the full doctrine of +later times. You can say that the Words of Institution in the Gospel +were only used by Our Founder metaphorically. You may say that the +famous description of the Mass in Justin Martyr nearly eighteen hundred +years ago did not connote the exact doctrine of Transubstantiation. You +may quote (as Cranmer did) passages from St. Augustine which permit the +special pleader to use them (if he leaves out the context and refuses +to mention other passages) as evidence of a subjective rather than an +objective Presence. But the plain historical fact remains that there +is not one single protest heard during all the centuries during which +the Christian Church did take the Real Presence for granted, and built +up round that accepted doctrine the whole mass of the Liturgy in East +and West. It remains true that you can find no resistance against this +universal attitude. Though there is metaphysical discussion, there is +not a case of a man saying, “The original doctrine was not that of +Real Presence: such doctrine is a corruption only just introduced, and +I protest against it.” + +When the protest comes it is after thirty generations, at the end of +the Dark Ages; and it produces a violent effect of innovation, of +novelty. + +I submit that no matter what particular defined doctrine in the +Catholic scheme you may select, you will find without exception +this most notable character attaching to it, that when denial of it +was made within the Christian community--as when Arius denied the +consubstantiality of the Son, or as when Nestorius denied the divine +motherhood of Our Lady--it had the effect of a stone thrown at a pane +of glass and breaking it: the startling effect of a shock; of something +quite unexpected and exceedingly and unpleasantly new. + +I myself who am writing this did, when I was a young man and very +imperfectly instructed, take for granted the opposite. I thought, for +instance, that the doctrine of the Trinity had very slowly arisen, +that an original ignorance of Our Lord’s full divinity was gradually +dispelled by the development of the doctrine; that the earlier the +evidence was, the less it would confirm the doctrine; and that Arius +was fighting a sort of rear-guard action: defending a cause which +had once been vigorous but was lapsing through the process of time. I +thought that; and I fancy most ordinary educated men who have not had +the leisure or desire to read the evidence in detail think something of +that sort with regard to the story of almost any one of the Christian +mysteries. For, after all, the process is exactly what one would +expect. One would expect any original statement in human affairs to be +commonplace and straightforward, and the supernatural interpretation of +it to come in by a process of accretion and illusion such as creates +the innumerable legends and myths of mankind: first the teacher is +a revered man, then vaguely thought to have something in him of the +divine, then to be some sort of divine being, and, lastly, a God. + +It was when I came to read the evidence and look closely into the +matter for myself that I began to feel the surprise which I record here +and which any one of my readers will also feel if he will read the +actual evidence instead of guessing at what sounds most probable. The +evidence is clear that the Trinitarian doctrine, growing in definition, +was never put forward with novel and protested accretions. It was the +Arian challenge which was new and immediately resisted. + +It is the same with the mystery of the sacrament. Let anyone who +believes the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist to have +grown up very gradually as a sort of legend or myth, an accretion +overlaying some originally straightforward and in no way mysterious +ceremony, read the words in which the earliest writers who refer to the +matter at all speak of it. Let him not only read the way in which they +speak of it, but the way in which they acted. When that young boy in +the streets of Pagan Rome allowed himself to be killed rather than show +to the profane What he carried veiled in his hands, it is evident that +he did not think it common bread. When we find in all the very earliest +evidence of Liturgy insistence upon and repetition of the mystery, it +gives us to think. I say again, for the twentieth time, as I have said +at so many other points in this debate, all this is not a proof of the +truth of the doctrine, but it is a proof that the historical process +with regard to the doctrine is not that of corruption and essential +change which our opponents have presumed it to be. It is a proof that, +true or false, the mystery of the sacrament now held was originally +held, and that the attack upon this doctrine, as upon any other, came +as a novelty. + +I have said that even this phenomenon, unparalleled as it is in the +tale of human thought, was capable of explanation by an opponent. But I +think if we examine that explanation we shall find it to fail. + +The explanation is as follows: You are dealing with a body of fervid +believers. As time proceeds the excesses, the delusions, the vagaries, +proceeding from their very enthusiasm, permeate their body insensibly, +and it is only when the process has gone a considerable length that, +with a shock, some strong and lucid brain confronts the deluded +with reality. Hence (it is said) the novelty of each heresy and the +startling effect produced by the first statement of each heretical +proposition. This is certainly true of abuses, as for instance the +abuse of image worship, when it came to such a pitch that men accepted +without question a mass of images, supposed to have appeared in some +miraculous fashion without human workmanship. And if it be true of +abuses which are recognised to be abuses by all, why should it not be +true of fundamental doctrines, considering the blind fervour of which +I have spoken and the natural consequences of such fervour? + +My answer to that explanation is that the cases are not sufficiently +numerous to establish a rule. It is true that you do get some few +cases, very few, of abuses which proceed some way before they are +abolished. But they do not go on long without being pulled up, nor are +they so general and manifold as to militate against our judgment that, +almost in proportion to its importance, the doctrine or mystery, when +it is challenged, is challenged by a new force. + +Moreover, there is this consideration. In the few cases where there is +the analogy of an admitted abuse somewhat tardily reformed, all in the +Church ultimately accept the reform. But this is not at all the case +with regard to the main orthodox doctrine--quite the other way. + +In every historical case of abuse, whether it be the erroneous +acceptation of a false document (as in the case of the Donation) +or an abuse of excess, as in the case of the exaggeration of image +worship, the traditional forces of this Sacred Society admit the moral +or clerical error, and usually they begin to admit it in increasing +numbers from the moment of the first challenge. But in the case of +orthodox doctrine it is not so. It is just the contrary. It is the +doctrine that stands and the heresy which gradually dies out. + +Of specific heresies which have attempted to maintain but a part of +truth while rejecting the rest, all without exception have gone through +a process of rapid growth, culmination and decay, and nearly all have +at last wholly faded. That is not true, of course, of pure scepticism. +That we shall always have with us, for it is native to the human mind. +A complete denial of the whole Catholic scheme, that is, a complete +rejection of all that is unfamiliar and does not repose upon evident +proof immediately acceptable to everyone; a denial of all mystery and +especially of specific doctrinal affirmation, is as natural to man as +breathing, for faith is of grace and is exceptional to Nature. But the +heresies, as distinguished from such general rationalist denial, never +have in them the vitality which continues to urge orthodox tradition. + +That is historical fact; and it is an historical fact which should +give every man who is seriously examining these things grave food for +thought. + +Take the example which is most familiar to the older members of the +present generation in English-speaking countries other than Ireland: I +mean, the attitude towards Holy Writ. + +Here heresy began by setting up the literal interpretation of Scripture +(and the personal judgment of the reader upon it) in opposition to the +authority of the Catholic Church. The Catholic tradition in the matter +was that (1) Scripture was the Word of God; but (2) given us not as a +record of science, or even History, so much as a witness to the Church +and particularly to the Incarnation; and (3) was only to be accepted in +the sense which the authority of the Catholic Church admitted. + +As against that ancient Catholic attitude towards the Bible came, as a +novelty, the fierce affirmation of its absolute and literal authority +and of its being plainly interpretable for himself by every reader. + +We are all witnesses to what has happened in that particular example. + +The heresy, after nearly three hundred years of vigour, has gone to +pieces. The Bible outside the Catholic Church has lost authority. The +original Catholic position remains. Indeed, there is a comic irony in +noting that it is we Catholics to-day who are thought old-fashioned in +maintaining our respect for the text of Scripture and in being slow to +admit all the modern guess-work in derogation of it. So much for the +test of Innovation. + +(2) I turn to the second test, the test of Critical Date. + +If it be true that the Catholic Church is the warping and corruption of +an originally delivered truth, then that warping and corruption must +have had an origin. + +I am walking by night along a road which is laid out upon the map for +miles due east and west; but after so walking for some time I begin to +notice by the stars that the road is bending. It turns more and more +southward. The map has misled me. In such a case I can, when daylight +returns, retrace my steps and I shall find the point of flexion. I may +not be able to establish it to a yard, nor even, if the process be at +first very gradual, to a quarter of a mile; but I shall at least be +able to say, “Up to this point it was dead straight, pointing west. +After this point (say, as much as a mile further on) it is clearly +bending south of west, and I find it bending more and more southward +as I proceed.” If not a point at least a section of flexion can be +established. + +Now there is this remarkable historical fact about the process of the +Catholic Church--that its Protestant opponents, all agreeing in its +loss of direction, cannot agree as to when that loss began. There is +not and apparently cannot be any general conclusion upon so simple +an historical matter as to even the main historical section--first +century, second, third, fourth, eleventh--in which this point of +flexion lies. For one body of Protestant thought it is found in what +they call “Counter-Reformation” of the sixteenth century. It was then +that the Catholic Church went wrong, with its exaggeration of Papal +power, of Eucharistic ritual, its more mechanical organisation of the +Sacrament of Penance, and all the rest of it. In the fifteenth century +the Church of England, of France, of Castille were all (rightly) in +communion and their common authority was sound. By 1600 it was lost. +For another set of Protestants the change was the opening of the Middle +Ages--what is called the “Hildebrandine Movement” of 1050–85. Until +then Christendom was proceeding in consonance with its tradition. +The see of Peter had Primacy indeed, but had not developed a highly +detailed jurisdiction over a vast number of personal and national +affairs. The discipline of celibacy among the clergy in the West (so +they tell us) had been optional; its universal enforcement was a +corruption. The monastic institution had been free and sincere; it +slowly became, after that date, enslaved to the Papal power and to +Mammon, and was more and more a scandal of insincerity. Others would +find the point of departure in the ignorance and loss of material +powers which mark the entry into the Dark Ages. The fifth and sixth +centuries are the wide sections in which to seek the point of flexion +and of decline. Others are willing to accept as traditional and on +the right line the Christendom of Gregory the Great and St. Augustine +of England; but the ninth century is a breaking point and the tenth +a final collapse; by the time of Marozia the Church had clearly lost +an original character which it never recovered, and that new and +degraded thing, the mediaeval Church, had begun to appear. The Church +was never more the same. For some few of my own acquaintance the +dreadful moment is 1870; the right way was lost with the definition of +the Infallibility of the Pope. For others again it is the thirteenth +century, with its developing organisation for the repression of heresy +and its too strict definition of the sacrament. For a very great body +of men in the immediate past (now a smaller number) things began to +go wrong with the freedom of the Church under Constantine. Then did +lay and state corruptions, imitations or influences of the old Pagan +society, begin to thwart the divine scheme. + +The most popular of the latest Protestant theories is that the thing +went wrong almost at once between Pentecost and the predication of St. +Paul, and that St. Paul was the author of the evil transformation into +a mystery religion of what had before been an ethical society upon the +suburban model. As their phrase goes, “Nothing can bridge the gulf +between the Gospels and the Pauline writings.” A lifetime ago the point +of flexion was put later. In the Protestant thesis of the mid-Victorian +day the corruption began about the end of the second century. St. Paul +was accepted, but already there was trouble beginning, as revealed in +the authentic epistles of St. Ignatius; and manifestly things were +becoming Catholic (and therefore corrupt) by the time of the African +Martyre, and were hopeless by the time of the Thirty Tyrants. For +these scholars the Catholic taint is the natural accompaniment of the +decline of civilisation after the Antonines. + +Now I am not saying that because there is dispute upon the moment of +flexion in any directive scheme, because there are debate and diverse +opinion upon the point where an upright original began to go wrong, +that therefore one may conclude it never did go wrong. But I am free +to maintain that such enormous disparities of opinion, and such a +ceaseless shifting of it, would be impossible if a plain historical +process were at work. + +When we consider, for instance, the popular monarchy of the English, +that is, the government of England by a king, aided indeed by other +powers, but having in his own hand the main force of the executive, +there may be some debate as to the moment in which these powers began +to fall off, until they reach the purely symbolic or nominal situation +in which they are to-day, when the king no longer governs at all but is +the neutral chief of society. I myself should put it as early as the +reign of Edward VI, and I should say it had become marked under the +elder Cecil at the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign. It is more usual to +say that the great change came under Charles I, and certainly it was +clinched by the civil wars. There are even perhaps some who maintain +that monarchy was still in the main more powerful than any other +political factor until the Dutch invasion of 1688. But at any rate it +lies within these two lifetimes--1550 to 1690. No one will deny that +the process had begun in the latter half of the sixteenth century; no +one will deny that it was thoroughly accomplished before the end of the +seventeenth. + +It is so with all other historical phenomena of the kind. You can +put within the limits of a lifetime, and not a very long lifetime, +the transformation and decline of the Roman Empire during the third +century. You can see clearly that feudalism was a living social system +under Henry III of England and even under Edward I, but that it was no +longer the spiritual motive of society after the Black Death. You may +take any process you like throughout History, and you will find this +to be true; not that you can always put your finger upon a particular +year or event, let alone a particular moment, but that you can say, +“Within this comparatively narrow limit of time the change takes +place, certainly the institution was living within its traditions and +in the direction determined by its originals as late as such and such a +moment; certainly after such and such a moment, not long subsequent, it +is as clearly failing to keep that original direction.” + +But here, in the case of the Catholic Church, her opponents can say +nothing of the kind. If they could, not only would scholarship be +roughly agreed among our opponents as to the Critical Date, but we +ourselves should at last be agreed, as we are agreed with regard to +attack upon abuses, in the long run--though never with regard to the +attack on doctrine. + +But there is no such agreement, and can be none; for the simple +reason that the Catholic Church has not thus warped or veered but has +remained herself. So by this second test I conclude that the historical +objection is false. + +It seems to me that an impersonal observer, say some historical +student from the extreme Orient, to whom the whole Catholic scheme was +indifferent and who cared nothing whether the original institution of +the Catholic Church had failed (because he had no affection for that +institution and no belief in any of its doctrines nor any respect +for Jesus Christ nor any attachment to the idea even of a personal +God)--it seems to me, I say, that such a wholly neutral observer +would, upon the general historical evidence, decide that the Catholic +Church was founded with a certain directive nineteen hundred years +ago, to be correct, about the year 29, and had remained throughout +the successive centuries consonant with itself. I think he would say +of it what we may say with regard to many an ancient state, “Its +personality has survived, its soul is still the same, its essential +unity has not been lost.” He would add the qualification “yet”; he +would conclude, “The personality _yet_ survives; the continuous life +has not _yet_ been lost.” We of the Faith of course affirm--but not +upon historical evidence--that the word _yet_ does not apply; that it +shall remain to the consummation of the ages. But for the purposes of +the particular argument which I am here examining, that is neither here +nor there. I say that a mere historical examination with no reference +to the truth or falsehood of the Church’s claim will conclude that +that claim has been continuous from the beginning, and that the Thing +to-day is essentially what it was when the strict organisation, +the unique phenomenon, appeared in Syria under the principate of +Tiberius. There is nothing left contemporary with that still vigorous, +still well-favoured, ancient Thing. It has seen the disappearance of +everything in Europe save itself, and its spring still copiously flows. + +(b) _The Sceptical or Pagan objection from History._ + +I have said that much the most important form of historical attack upon +the Catholic position, the most formidable, and to-day the most hardly +pressed, the most lively and the most universal, is the Pagan or purely +Sceptical, the definition of which I will here repeat. + +It is maintained that the claim of the Catholic Church to Divine +Infallible Authority is baseless, because it is manifestly man-made. +The process of reasoning is as follows: + +Man is to be discovered in history perpetually making gods, erecting +religious themes, constructing cosmogonies. It is in his nature thus +to project himself upon the universe and to take his imaginations for +realities. His gods are but large reflected images of himself; his +religious doctrines, from the petty myths of a small savage tribe to +the majestic fabric of Catholicism, are one and all upon the same +model. Each is false, for each differs from the rest; and all are +false, for all are compact of the same stuff as the others: a stuff +bearing plainly the marks of human emotion and human construction. +Now this prophet is deified, now that chief, now that other imaginary +figure, half legendary or perhaps wholly without historical existence; +and what is true of any one of these is true also of the Catholic +scheme. The deification of its Founder is an example of deification +like any other. Its elaborate theology is but a somewhat more developed +specimen of what men have done before us and will do after us--a +spinning of logical systems into the void on premises that are without +substantial basis. Its affirmations of the miraculous are of the same +legendary sort as those to be discovered in a thousand other forms; +its ritual can be proved to have cousinship in this point or in that +with many another ritual of sacrifice, expiation and the rest; the +very details of its liturgical life, the mere ornaments, the host of +practices, the great monastic institutions, the pretty small devotions +of light and ornament--all these are of one material. That material has +been exhaustively examined and is now historically known. A vast mass +of evidence has been accumulated and continues to accumulate. The more +it is co-ordinated the more clearly this conclusion appears. + +That is the position we have to meet. That is the main historical +argument against the divine origin and authority of the Church of God. + +Our fundamental answer to such a position is of course not historical +at all. It is the answer of faith; as though a man should say, “Yes, +this stone is a stone and there are multitudes of stones, but I believe +this particular stone to be a talisman.” Or as though he should say, +“Yes, this Man was a man, and there have been countless millions of +men; but this one Man, and this one Man only, was also God.” The +rational basis (not the positive proof) of such a reply is based upon +spiritual experience--upon our judgment after noting the world, its +reactions towards the Faith, and the effects of the Faith upon it, +that here if anywhere is the divine; a conclusion coupled with our +further judgment that somewhere there must be present upon earth the +visible action of the divine acting in corporate fashion through some +institution, some society, some body. + +But this main argument does not concern the little essay which you are +reading. I am dealing only with the value of the historical argument +against the Faith, as I have put it, I think fairly, into the lips of +one of our typical, modern, well-read opponents. + +Now what is our reply? + +Our reply is that the generalisation is hasty and inaccurate, and that +the more you examine it the more you discover upon what a false and +superficial basis it reposes. + +There is not a great number of religions, nor has there been in the +past a greater number, apparent to men of different nations and +temperaments, of which hotchpotch the Catholic Church is but one. There +is not a multitude of systems of theology falling under the one general +category “theologies,” of which the Catholic scheme is but a single +specimen. Upon the contrary, there is, and has been for these centuries +past, a social and religious phenomenon _unique and comparable to +nothing else_, called the Catholic Church. Its spirit, quality, voice, +personality is such that the line of cleavage does not lie between it +and pure scepticism, leaving on the one side _all_ religions (including +Catholicism) and on the other the free uncertain mind; the line of +cleavage lies between the Faith upon one side and all other human +opinions and moods upon the other. And this unique character of the +Catholic Church is as plain an historical truth as the astronomical +truth of the reverse rotation of Uranus is unique among the planets. It +claims what no other society has ever claimed. It affirms its Founder +to have been what no other society claims its founder to have been. +It functions as no other society has functioned: by an unsupported +authority, absolute in its affirmation. + +It may indeed be granted that in pure theory at least there is an +equal alternative to the unique thing. One might say that, outside +the Catholic Church, the human mind can stand quite unattached, +examining all things by no criterion save common experience and the +deductive power of the intelligence. In pure theory there might be a +whole society of such detached (but also quite unrooted) minds with no +certitudes, no ethical predicates, living upon the void. + +In practice that is not so. There is not one of us that can point to +any mind of his acquaintance, or to any mind appearing through the +pages of a book which occupies such a position. All without exception +betray an ethical theory of some kind, that is, doctrines which, though +the holder of them may refuse to formulate them, appear in his actions. +Every man is a theologian. Every man has his philosophy of the world. +And viewing man thus as he is, always a member of some group, we do +not discover as an historical phenomenon any group save that of the +Catholic Church which possesses the unique character of authority. +Conversely, we find in all other groups the well-known marks attached +to men in all forms of worship--rites, doctrines, disciplines: we find +in Catholicism similar phenomena; but we do _not_ find in any of the +other groups, into which men’s attempts at satisfying this religious +sense may fall, that particular mark in which Catholicism is quite +different from all the rest. + +Let us turn to the historical evidence on the matter and see how +true this is, prefacing that examination by the reiterated remark +that such unique quality does not of itself and unsupported by other +considerations determine the mind to accept the authority of the Faith, +but remarking that it does provide a presumption stronger than our +modern world, even its small educated part, is generally aware of. + +In the first place, is it true that there are a mass of religions +bearing for their chief characteristic that which is the chief +characteristic of the Catholic Church--a secure, unfailing and constant +affirmation of Infallible Authority? + +No; it is not true. There have been many restricted, some (very few) +widespread religious systems; to-day there are two in especial--the +Buddhist, the Mohammedan, occur at once to mind; but not one of them +makes this particular Catholic affirmation. Mohammedan society, not +a new religion but essentially an offshoot and degradation of the +Christian, taking the Catholic doctrine and simplifying it to its +last rudiments (with the exception of all in it that demands faith in +mystery), is passionate for a certain way of life and intolerant of +others. It creates a very marked and special culture which no doubt +could claim in its own way to be historically unique, just as the +culture of the Chinese is historically unique. But Islam does not +come forward with the statement, “I am a society of divine foundation +possessed of the power to reply to question after question upon the +only things that really matter, to which questions man has never yet +of himself attained an answer.” It says indeed, “This is the way to +live; and in this way of living we are content. A disturbance of it +is odious to us, and we desire as much as we can to turn all others +into our own image--not only the religious, but the social habits of +men offend us where very different from our own.” But it does not and +cannot of its nature say, “Here alone through this defined organisation +is the voice of God perpetually speaking, settling controversies, +defining and re-defining in ever-expanding area of thought whatever +truths may be challenged.” It is alive, but it is not alive with a +life of development; and so far from presenting any organisation +through which its doctrine can be developed as well as affirmed, +it is specifically repugnant to such organisations. In a phrase, +Mohammedanism is essentially anti-clerical. + +If it be true of Mohammedanism (the chief historically active opponent +of the Faith) that it has not the peculiar marks which make the +Catholic Church different from any other society in the world, that +it has not some major quality by which all religions are distinct and +which is also the major quality of the Catholic Church, that statement +is still more true of Buddhism. + +Buddhism never pretended to make, and does not make to-day, an +affirmation to be accepted corporately by the universal world. It +presents a certain philosophy--which I cannot but call the philosophy +of despair, and which is quite certainly a philosophy of negation. It +presents this gloom for acceptation by the individual mind. But it +claims no corporate rule; it affirms no divine authority: it enjoys +no functional power of excretion nor any of assimilation. You cannot +say of Buddhism, “Here is orthodoxy and the living tradition searching +out heresy and denouncing it, maintaining its life triumphantly by +insistence upon a personality of its own and by a corresponding power +of attack against whatever would diminish or threaten that life.” + +If we turn from the great systems to the local worships we find another +character, wholly separate from that apparent in Catholicism: that +they do not pretend to certitude; they pretend to no more than the +satisfaction of emotion and to a corporation tradition. They have their +myths, but will readily accept them as myths or compare them unoffended +with the myths of others. They have their sanctities: but their +sanctities make no pretence at all to be universal. There was one, and +only one, historical phenomenon, which in this point did compare with +the Faith--the phenomenon of the Jewish religion; and that is precisely +why we Catholics call the Jewish religion the forerunner of our own and +the preparation of the world for its Incarnate God. + +But is it not true that there are countless ceremonies and also major +doctrines, comparable to and some even nearly identical with those of +the Faith? + +It is; and to that we answer that if there is to be such a thing as the +Faith on earth, it could not but be so. If men must worship, they will +worship in places. If men feel the pull of a religious emotion, at once +the sacramental idea must enter in. There cannot but be a connection +between the physical life of man and any religious system whatsoever, +true or false, with which he is inmixed. And so surely as the ministers +of the true religion will breathe and eat and walk upon their feet, +each as much as the ministers of the false, so surely you will find +in a true religion, if true religion there be, habits, practices, +doctrines, which (not all combined, but here one, there another) men +have groped for or arrived at in systems which attempted or adumbrated +the truth, but did not even claim to be the full truth. + +It is not an historical argument against the divinity of this one +thing that it has the qualities which human things must have. Upon the +contrary, it is an argument in favour of its claim. + +That the unique object here displayed, the Catholic Church, is divine +cannot on this account be affirmed; but it can be affirmed that if such +a unique object exist, then it will have these characters attaching to +it. + +A man making a survey of what little is known of the old religious +experiments and perversions of mankind, and being asked, as a pure +hypothesis, “Suppose a divine society, corporate, distinct, highly +organised, and therefore of highly differentiated function, were to +arise on earth to bear witness to the Living God: suppose such a +thing for the sake of argument only, what, think you, would such a +body present by way of appearance, action and thought?” could not but +answer that it would have of necessity present within it not only vital +truths, but also practices discoverable wherever man had groped at or +half remembered a revelation. + +This man, with no knowledge of such a society, but considering what +his fellow beings were, what the human mind is, what questions it +poses, what answers it demands, would reply: “In that society you would +discover the worship of a Creator, the affirmation that he had revealed +himself; a mysterious link between the divine and the human, comparable +to the link between the unthinking matter of our bodies and the living +essence within. It would have sacrifice and veneration combined. It +would sanctify objects, places, persons and rites; it would have +central institutions, and in proportion to its vitality a multitude of +lesser activities; it would have symbols which it would distinguish +from realities and forms of reality which it would attach to symbols; +for man without a soul is a corpse, and man without a body is a wraith. +This supposed society which you bid men imagine would certainly present +in their highest form such elements as History has also discovered, +disjointedly appearing, often perverted, often degraded, in the various +(and ineffective) spiritual experiments or lapses of mankind.” + +Then, one might say to such a man, such a general scholar and observer +of the unique animal, man, at prayer, “Should there conceivably be +such a home upon the earth, how otherwise would you know it?” He could +but answer, “Its nature would be such that it would satisfy to the +full the demands of men; it would be unique so as to correspond to man +himself who is unique on earth, and it would grant him fulness and +repose.” + +Such and such alone is the Catholic Church. If it be not what it claims +to be, then all is void. + + + + + FOOTNOTES + +[1] The Anglican authority and scholar, Dr. Lightfoot. + +[2] For instance, he says there cannot have been a dragon under the +Capitol because dragons are only found in Africa! + +[3] For instance, the absurdity about the tides, and the argument from +the phases of Venus. + +[4] “Educated” Europe meant a far larger body in Catholic times than +it does now. Universities were then popular institutions and their +attendance was from every class. + +[5] Taking the date of Pentecost as A. D. 29. + +[6] Thus, a man who says, “While rejecting all dogmas and creed I +revere the vaguer part of the traditional moral teaching of Jesus” is +essentially a Protestant, not a sceptic, or Pagan: for such do not +revere any part of our morals. Protestant also, not Pagan, is the +man who confines himself to “the authentic teaching of Jesus” freed +from all later stories of the marvellous and all the sophistries of +Theology, which “authentic teaching” he picks out of the heap by his +own infallibility. For the true sceptic or Pagan has no more use +for the “authentic” fragments than for all the rest. He is equally +indifferent to the whole. + +[7] Heresy = Αιρεσις--“Picking and choosing.” + +[8] Thus we say of a man of twenty-five that he “changes” into the man +of forty. We also say of a man gone mad that he has “changed.” But the +word “change” has two very different meanings in the two cases. In the +one case it is change within the framework, of unity, of one character +and personality. In the other it is the change _against_ that unity, a +rupture of it. + + + + + Transcriber’s Note + + +Some inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have +been retained. + +This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text. Small capitals +changed to all capitals. + +p. 37: changed “phenomenom” to “phenomenon” (That such a phenomenon) + +p. 48: deleted duplicate word “the” (condemned by authority of the +Catholic Church) + +p. 71: changed “eraliest” to “earliest” (the earliest origins of the +Church) + +p. 83: changed “men” to “man” (first the teacher is a revered man) + +p. 96: changed “cay” to “may” (what we may say with regard to) + +p. 96: changed “here” to “there” (neither here nor there) + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78085 *** diff --git a/78085-h/78085-h.htm b/78085-h/78085-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dfd1632 --- /dev/null +++ b/78085-h/78085-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3247 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no,date=no,address=no,email=no,url=no"> + <title> + The Catholic Church and History | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +/* front matter sizes */ +.fm-l { font-size: 115%; } +.fm-s { font-size: 85%; } + +/* indents */ +.in3em { margin-left: 3em; } +.in6em { margin-left: 6em; } + +p { + margin-top: .5em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .5em; +} + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} +.p4 {margin-top: 4em;} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +hr.r5 {width: 5%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 47.5%; margin-right: 47.5%;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + width: 47em; max-width: 47em; /* only one table this project */ +} +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } +table.autotable td, +table.autotable th { padding: 0.75em 0.25em; } + +.lr-brace1 { height: 32em; max-height: 32em; min-height: 32em; + width: 1.2em; max-width: 1.2em; min-width: 1.2em; } +.lr-brace2 { height: 6.5em; max-height: 6.5em; min-height: 6.5em; + width: 1em; max-width: 1em; min-width: 1em; } +.lr-brace3 { height: 19em; max-height: 19em; min-height: 19em; + width: 1em; max-width: 1em; min-width: 1em; } +.lr-brace4 { height: 12.5em; max-height: 12.5em; min-height: 12.5em; + width: 1em; max-width: 1em; min-width: 1em; } + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + visibility: hidden; + position: absolute; + left: 1.5%; /* wide table; move to left side */ + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} /* page numbers */ + +blockquote { + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +figcaption {font-weight: bold;} +figcaption p {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: .2em; text-align: inherit;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} + + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: 1px dashed;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + + +/* indent paragraphs */ +p { text-indent: 1em; } +p.noindent { text-indent: 0; } + +/* de-emphasize page numbers */ +.pagenum { color: #bbbbbb; } + +/* footnote block styling */ +.footnotes { + border: 1px dashed #aaaaaa; + margin-top: 1.5em; +} + +/* TN styling */ +.transnote { + background-color: inherit; + border: 1px dashed #bbbbbb; + margin-top: 3em; + page-break-before: always; +} + +/* don't visibly style abbr */ +abbr { + border: none; + text-decoration: none; + font-variant: normal; +} +/* abbrs that should be read letter-by-letter */ +abbr.spell { speak: spell-out; } + +/* "gray bar" blockquotes */ +blockquote { + border-left: .15em solid #c8c8c8; + padding-left: .7em; + margin-left: 4%; + margin-right: 8%; +} + +/* don't wrap; better than invisible word joiner char? */ +.nowrap { white-space: nowrap; } + +/* hanging indent */ +.hanging2 { + padding-left: 2em; + text-indent: -2em; +} + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78085 ***</div> + +<div class="transnote"> +<p class="center"><strong>Transcriber’s Note</strong></p> +<p> +This book contains a wide, complex table that may not display +well on some e-reader devices. +</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<p class="center p2">THE CALVERT SERIES<br> +<span class="smcap">Hilaire Belloc</span>, <i>General Editor</i></p> + +<p class="center p4 fm-l">THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND HISTORY +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<p class="p2 center"> +<span class="fm-l">THE CALVERT SERIES</span><br> +<span class="smcap">Hilaire Belloc</span>, <i>General Editor</i> +</p> + +<hr class="r5"> + +<p class="hanging2"> + <i>Belloc</i>: <span class="smcap">The Catholic Church and History</span></p> +<p class="hanging2"> + <i>Chesterton</i>: <span class="smcap">The Catholic Church and Conversion</span></p> +<p class="hanging2"> + <i>McNabb</i>: <span class="smcap">The Catholic Church and Philosophy</span></p> +<p class="hanging2"> + <i>Ward</i>: <span class="smcap">The Catholic Church and the Appeal to Reason</span></p> +<p class="hanging2"> + <i>Windle</i>: <span class="smcap">The Catholic Church and Its Reactions With Science</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h1>THE CATHOLIC CHURCH +AND HISTORY</h1> +</div> + +<p class="center p2">BY<br> +<span class="fm-l">HILAIRE BELLOC</span></p> + +<p class="center p4"><i>NEW YORK</i><br> +<span class="fm-l">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</span><br> +<span class="fm-s">1927</span></p> + +<p class="center fm-s"> +<i>All Rights Reserved</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"></div> +<p class="noindent"> +<span lang="la">Nihil Obstat</span><br> +<span class="smcap in3em">Arthur J. Scanlan</span>, <abbr class="spell">S. T. D.</abbr><br> +<span class="in6em" lang="la">Censor Librorum.</span> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span lang="la">Imprimatur</span><br> +<span class="smcap in3em">Patrick Cardinal Hayes</span><br> +<span class="in6em">✠ Archbishop, New York.</span> +</p> + +<p class="noindent">New York, September 16, 1926.</p> + +<p class="center p4 fm-s">Copyright, 1926,<br> +<span class="smcap">By</span> THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.</p> + +<hr class="r5"> + +<div style="display:flex; justify-content:center;"> +<p class="fm-s">Set up and electrotyped.<br> +Published November, 1926.<br> +Reprinted, April, 1927<br> +September, 1927.</p> +</div> + +<p class="center p4 fm-s"><i>Printed in the United States of America by</i><br> +THE FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY, NEW YORK.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE"> + PREFACE + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>The object of the author has been to state and +summarise in a brief, succinct form the arguments +drawn from History in opposition to the claim of +the Catholic Church: that is, to the claim put forward +by that Church to speak with Divine and +Infallible Authority. The author insists upon the +point that he is not attempting a positive apologetic +drawn from History in favour of this claim, but a +rebutting of the evidence drawn from History opposed +to this claim. He is engaged in examining +the value of the arguments drawn from History to +prove that the Catholic Church has varied or erred +in her teaching or has made it depend upon immoral +methods, and in showing that they have no force.</p> + +<p>The little book is divided into two parts, the +first dealing with the three moral arguments: +(1) that the Church has made pronouncements +which History can prove to be false; (2) that the +Church can be proved by History to have used +material which she knew to be false; (3) that the +Church, being proved by history to be not only +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span>organised but increasingly organised from the beginning +of its existence, is thereby shown to be +different from the simple thing which a divine institution +of the sort should be.</p> + +<p>Secondly, the intellectual argument, to wit, that +the Church can be proved by History to be man-made, +not God-made. This the author divides into +two sections: (1) the Protestant argument that +there was some original good message told by Jesus +Christ, which the Church has gradually corrupted +and from the origin of which she has deviated; +(2) the general agnostic argument that the Church +can be proved historically to be but one of many +religions, to have grown up like any other religion, +with the same illusions and similar rites and mysteries, +and is therefore man-made—which last form +of attack the author regards as to-day by far the +most serious.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="EDITORS_PREFACE"> + EDITOR’S PREFACE + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>There needs but a brief introduction from the +same pen as that which composed the essay which +follows it.</p> + +<p>It must be to this effect.</p> + +<p>The general subject “The Catholic Church and +History” might be treated from a hundred different +positions. Perhaps the most important in the +eyes of the cultured man of our day is the question +whether the Catholic Church is, or is not, +proved by the general story of European history +for the last two thousand years to have been a +beneficent influence. That question, however, I +cannot touch upon because the question whether +the Church be beneficent or no is, to a Catholic, +subsidiary to the point whether its claim to be +the very truth is valid or no. If this claim is justified, +then certainly the Church must be beneficent. +If it be proved beneficent, that will indeed be some +support of its claim; but a weak one, because we +cannot even judge whether it be beneficent or no +until we have decided what we think better and +what worse—and this issue cannot be decided until +we are certain of our philosophy, that is, of our +religion.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span></p> + +<p>It is another and more important point to discuss +whether the Church in her long history has, +or has not, shown exceptional signs of holiness and +of supernatural power, which are an evidence of her +claim. There are also, as I have said, very many +other points of discussion which the general title +suggests.</p> + +<p>I have confined myself to <em>one</em>, and <em>one</em> only, to +wit, the rebutting of a certain argument drawn from +History <em>against</em> the Church. I have done so for +the reason that, in my eyes at least, much the most +formidable assault delivered against the Catholic +Church to-day is the assault delivered from the +historical argument. There remains (as I have said +in the Essay that follows) much of the old Protestant +argument, to wit, that an original excellent +establishment or message of divine origin was +corrupted in the course of the centuries and that +the Roman Communion still defends that corruption, +so that its claim to authority fails. This I +have attempted to meet. But of far more weight +in my judgment, at the present moment, is the general +argument that, regarding History as a whole +and adding to it what little we can guess, and what +very little we positively know, about man before +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>he began to establish records, the Faith is but an +illusion, parallel to many another such illusion to +which men have been subject by the process of projecting +their own imaginations upon the void of +the universe.</p> + +<p>This I am convinced is the chief attack which +we of the Faith have to meet in modern times. The +modern white world, the world of the European +races and their oversea expansion, is rapidly becoming +divided into two fairly definite camps: +those who accept the full mission of the Catholic +Church and those who are convinced, by the study +of geology and recorded History, that the Catholic +Church is but one more example of man’s power of +self-delusion.</p> + +<p>Two questions may be asked of me by those +who should read the analysis which makes up my +booklet. First, why have I confined myself to +rebutting, that is, to a negative position, instead of +advancing positive evidence from History in favor +of the Catholic claim (evidence drawn from holiness, +continuity, unity, <abbr>etc.</abbr>)? Secondly, why have +I given but a portion, and not the largest portion, +of my space to what I have called the most important +part of the attack, to wit, the attack from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span>general pre-History and History, the purely Sceptical +attack which I deal with at the end of my +Essay? My answer to these two questions is as +follows:</p> + +<p>First, that, in my judgment, the action of the +Catholic Church is here a defensive action. The +opponent <em>takes it for granted</em> that History and pre-History +<em>dis</em>prove the Catholic claim. He must be +met as one attacking.</p> + +<p>Secondly, that though the general Sceptical attack +is by far the more important, yet it needs less +space in writing for the meeting of it than does +the discussion of the old Protestant attitude. The +reason is that the issue between the Faith and mere +scepticism is narrower and sharper, and at the same +time more general. If you are debating whether +the Church declined or was corrupted you must +go into more historical detail. You must in some +degree, even in so short an essay as this, be concrete. +But on the other and larger issue you have a very +simple and direct “yes” or “no”; which is, briefly, +the answer to that old, eternal question “whether +religion be from God or from man”; and upon the +answer to that question depends the future of our +civilisation.—<i>The Editor.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[Pg 11]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center p4 fm-l"> +THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND HISTORY</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a><a id="Page_13"></a>[Pg 13]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center p4 fm-l"> +THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND HISTORY</p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="I"> + <abbr title="1">I</abbr> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>1. By the term “The Church” I mean the Catholic +Church; and by the Catholic Church I mean +that visible society real, one, and clearly present +before the world to-day, which is in communion +with the Apostolic See of Rome, and accepts not +only the supremacy of that see but also the Infallibility +of its occupant when, as shepherd and teacher +of all Christians, and speaking in that capacity, he +defines a matter in faith or morals.</p> + +<p>2. The Church claims Divine Authority. She +says:</p> + +<p>“I alone know fully and teach those truths essential +to the life and final happiness of the soul. I +alone am that Society wherein the human spirit +reposes in its native place; for I alone stand in the +centre whence all is seen in proportion and whence +the chaotic perspective of things falls into right +order. Mankind cannot feed upon itself—for that +is death at last. I alone provide external sustenance +from that which made mankind. The soil of my +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>country alone can fully nourish mankind. Here, +in me, alone is reality. For I alone am not man-made +but am of direct divine foundation and am +by my divine Founder perpetually maintained.”</p> + +<p>3. Against this claim many forms of rejection +are found, each with its type of argument: as, that +the claim conflicts with the ascertained results of +Physical Science: that it advances a particular affirmation +not based on the only proofs admissible by +reason: that the objector discovers in the Church +not the marks of holiness which should accompany +such a claim, but rather of evil, <abbr>etc.</abbr></p> + +<p>Among the chief objections is the objection from +History. It is affirmed that the records of the past, +the better they are known and the more closely +they are examined, make the more certainly for the +rejection of the Church’s claim to Divine Authority, +to unique inspiration. These records (it is affirmed) +show the Church to be of merely human origin. +They yield manifold evidence that illusion, myth +and even craft have built up her structure. Her +rites are of the kind imagined by men in all ages +and places wherever men have abandoned themselves +to emotional images divorced from reason. +Her doctrines are spun out of nothingness by men +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>engaged upon mere systems invented to explain +irrational statements. Her objects of worship are +but projections of the worshipper’s mind and have +no real existence.</p> + +<p>History, it is said, can prove all this. We can +trace illusion growing from step to step: the +mythical and legendary gradually accepted for fact; +the doubtful, vague, uncertain, tentative dream +hardening into fixed and absurd dogma. Supposed +contemporary evidence, enlightened History with +modern apparatus, proved to be subsequent interpolations. +The writings traditionally ascribed to +witnesses turn out—under the examination of History—to +be of a very different and later date. +Beyond all this and clinching the argument is the +discovery through History that men have always +thus created for themselves wholly fanciful beings +whom they have worshipped always in much the +same fashions. There has been a long process of +self-deception from which humanity in its advance +is gradually freeing itself, and in this process the +Catholic Church is but the last phase.</p> + +<p>It is this objection, the argument from History, +that I propose to refute. Certain other of the main +objections—the objection from Reason, the objection +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>from Philosophy, the objection from Physical +Science—are dealt with in other works in this series. +I am dealing with the historical objection alone. I +propose to show, not that History may convince +any man of the Church’s claim, but that the supposed +argument from History against that claim +has failed. I propose to enquire upon the validity +of the objection from History.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="II"> + <abbr title="2">II</abbr> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>Premises must precede such an enquiry. I lay +them down as follows:</p> + +<p>(1) The refutation of any argument against the +Faith is not a demonstration of the truth of the +Faith. It is the removal only of an obstacle to the +Faith. For the Faith is not arrived at by demonstration, +but by demonstration it is shown to be at +least tenable. The Faith is not a conclusion which +all can reach by the formal action of reason, but a +revelation to be defended by reason. The Faith is +not a theory, but a thing. It is rational, but not +deductively arrived at. There is no process whereby +all mankind can be convinced of it as of an abstract +proposition. But there is a process whereby all +mankind can be convinced that each particular +proposition against it has failed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span></p> + +<p>This principle in what is called “Apologetics” +(that is, writings in defence of Catholic truth) is +so generally neglected that it is of the first importance +to make it quite clear at the opening of any +discussion upon revealed religion.</p> + +<p>A man who can see colours will never be able to +prove colour to a colour-blind man. He can show +that the colour-blind man’s arguments—<abbr>e.g.</abbr>, that +colours do not exist because if they did they would +affect surface—are false. If he proceeds to establish +the presence of colours positively, he must do +so by analogy, by convergent evidence, by the manifest +action of others, by the proved nature of other +senses than that of sight. He can only <em>prove</em> (in +the strict deductive sense of the word “prove”) +that the sense of colour is rational, acceptable without +violence to the human mind; but that it is +present he must establish by other methods.</p> + +<p>Nearly all our modern debates in this matter are +confused by the fact that one of the parties misconceives +the nature of these debates. The opponent +of Catholicism thinks that its apologist is, in arguing, +trying to prove Catholic truth as one proves +a case for a positive verdict. He is not. He is +rebutting the supposed value of opposing evidence; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span>he is pleading for a negative verdict; for acquittal +of the charge “irrational.” When he comes to establishing +the Faith positively, he does not do so by +following one line of deductive reason, but by a +mass of converging considerations.</p> + +<p>History cannot be said to prove the Faith, save +in the very extended use of the word “prove” to +mean a general process of increasing conviction +from the examination of what is revealed of the +Church’s action on the world, of men’s attitude +towards it, of the moral and intellectual activities +of acceptors and rejectors compared. But it can be +<em>proved</em> that an increasing knowledge of History +does not shake the Church’s claim to Divine +Authority: while, on the contrary, a lesser knowledge +is almost invariably more hostile to that +authority than a greater.</p> + +<p>(2) I have used the term “reason,” and this +leads me to my second premise: The human reason +is absolute in its own sphere.</p> + +<p>That elementary truth is often denied to-day +(though the minds which deny it can only use +reason to arrive at this very conclusion!), but it is +fundamental and I must postulate it as a necessary +prelude to any discussion. For to argue with men +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>who deny the basis of all argument is futile; it is +like pleading in a court where the judge is a corpse +and the jury a set of waxworks.</p> + +<p>A man says, “The river Ohio flows eastwards.” +I show by the compass, the map, and the sun, or in +any other rational way you like that it flows westward. +If he then answer me, “Oh! that is formal +logic—I have no use for it! Westward and eastward +are but apparent contradictories. They can +be resolved into a higher unity. And, after all, +what is ‘flowing’? And here is a bend of the river +which does flow eastward for a mile or two. And +a statement may well be true in a higher sense +than the geographical one. And anyhow, the +modern mind is no longer bound by the mediaeval +fetters of dialectic”—if he replies with this sort of +rigmarole, I must leave him to it. I am writing +not for modernists—that is, not for people who +think that a proposition can be both true and +untrue at the same time—but for men of sane tradition +who admit logic as a court of final appeal in +things of the mind. For we Catholics regard reason +as supreme in its own sphere and will admit nothing +contrary to reason.</p> + +<p>(3) Lastly, I must premise that we are discussing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>things as they are: the real Catholic Church; +and are excluding from the discussion what is not +germane to it. We are discussing the claim of the +Catholic Church to authority, the claims of its +accredited organs to express divine truth—not what +some opponent may in ignorance regard as an +accredited organ of the Catholic Church, when it +is nothing of the kind, nor a supposed doctrine of +the Church which the Church has never taught. +Conversely, I do not admit as rebutting evidence +such phrases as “all the best authorities” or “all the +latest authorities”—they are worthless as evidence. +I examine the grounds on which the affirmations +are made, not the mere affirmation unsupported by +anything but fashion. (Thus, if an opponent advance, +“Marcus, a priest, said the earth was flat: it +is proved round; therefore the Catholic Church was +wrong,” it is replied that Marcus, a priest, is not +the Catholic Church. Or if it be said, “The Catholic +Church teaches that mankind is but six thousand +years old,” it is answered, “Many heretical sects +have taught this but the Catholic Church has never +taught it.” Or if it be said, “The Catholic Church +affirms the witness of the fourth Gospel but all reasoning +men admit that it is spurious,” it is replied, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span>“All reasoning men do not admit that it is spurious: +that is but the affirmation of a fashionable +school.”)</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="III"> + <abbr title="3">III</abbr> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>We must begin by establishing the main sections +into which is divided the argument from History +against the claims of the Catholic Church.</p> + +<p>But before setting out these sections in their order +I must reject one as having no relation to the discussion, +though often confused with it: I mean the +so-called historical argument from material prosperity.</p> + +<p>It is advanced that the claim of the Catholic +Church to Divine Authority is negatived by a +proved historical process whereby societies rejecting +the Church’s claim are blessed with material prosperity, +while societies accepting that claim become +poor.</p> + +<p>Such an argument no more applies to societies in +their relation to the Church’s authority than it does +to individuals in relation to the authority of their +own conscience or of their own reason. My conviction +that a course of action is morally right, or +that a given statement is intellectually true, is not +to be tested by its effect upon my income. In point +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span>of fact, the argument is as worthless in its presumptions +as in its reasoning. The historical affirmation +is historically false. It is not true that +societies have risen in wealth through the rejection +of the Catholic Faith, or fallen in wealth through +the retention of it. The two phenomena are not +correlated in History at all, and there is as much to +be set upon the one side of the account in this brief +two hundred years over which the rises and falls +extend as on the other.</p> + +<p>But even were the statement true, the application +of it would be clearly beside the mark: even had +every Catholic society fallen into penury and every +anti-Catholic risen to affluence, it would be utterly +without bearing upon the truth or falsehood of the +Catholic claim.</p> + +<p>This being said, what are the respectable and +historical arguments against the Faith? What are +those arguments drawn from History of which the +intelligent man must take serious notice? They +would seem to fall into two categories:</p> + +<p>The first argument I will call the minor argument, +because it appeals only to the moral sense—not +that the moral sense is less than the intellectual, +but that in weighing questions of material evidence +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>(which is the matter of History) a moral test takes +the second place. Thus, in a court of justice evidence +to character, though of weight, counts less in +establishing a man’s claim than material evidence. +Next I find, and much more cogent, a major argument, +which is directly concerned with the intellectual +facilities of man.</p> + +<p>(<abbr title="1">I</abbr>) The minor, or moral argument, as I have +called it, is directed against the character of the +Church, and attempts to show from History that +her character is not consonant with her claims. It +has many forms: accusations of cruelty, of unsocial +neglect in material things, <abbr>etc.</abbr>, but the main headings +are three:</p> + +<p>(a) The Church has been historically confident +upon and has affirmed as truths a number of points +since proved to be erroneous: a Divine Authority +would never go wrong upon any point.</p> + +<p>(b) The Church has relied on falsehoods and +propagated them <em>after</em> she had known them to be +falsehoods, and has not abandoned them until she +was compelled to abandon them by the overwhelming +weight of evidence. No Divine Authority +would act in this fashion.</p> + +<p>(c) The Church is highly organised and has +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>apparently always shown organisation: such organisation +has developed more and more from the +beginning, or at any rate from a very early stage +indeed. The Church is a body whose doctrines, +institutions and structure have perpetually proceeded +from the simpler to the more complex and +from the less to the more defined. Nothing possessing +divine inspiration would be organised, for +organisation is mechanical and is of death: inspiration, +which is of life, remains free, at large, untrammelled +by rule.</p> + +<p>(<abbr title="2">II</abbr>) What I have called the major, intellectual +argument, which is much the more serious in all +our debate, stands thus:</p> + +<p>The Church is man-made, as can be seen by the +appearance over and over again in History of a doctrine +or a practice unknown to an earlier epoch, +and more largely, by a comparison between all +religions; for the Church, which seemed a unique +phenomenon to the lesser historical knowledge of +our fathers, is now discovered to be but one of +many similar phenomena, one of many religions, +with rites and doctrines not indeed identical (they +differ widely), but all having parts in common and +all presumably of human institution. Therefore +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>the Church must be included in the character of all +religions: it is but one of many and man-made like +the rest.</p> + +<p>But this major, intellectual argument falls into +two very distinct branches, which I will call the +Protestant and the purely Sceptical.</p> + +<p>(a) The Protestant appeal to History takes the +form of saying: “The Christian revelation is indeed +divine, but at some period (earlier or later, according +to the views of the disputant) it was corrupted +by man-made accretions and illusions. History is +therefore opposed to the Catholic Church: for History +bears witness to the fact that the Catholic +Church as we know it is essentially man-made. But +there does underlie it some divine foundation, some +moral revelation not man-made.” (The limits of +this acceptable minimum each individual disputant +fixes for himself.)</p> + +<p>(b) The Sceptical appeal to History—much the +most formidable to-day, and always intellectually +the most respectable—speaks in much bolder tones, +thus: “The whole of the Catholic Faith from beginning +to end is man-made. It is a mass of illusions: +of projections of the human mind thrown +by the human imagination upon the void; of deceptions, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span>some of them conscious in some degree, many +more but half-conscious; by far the most unconscious, +implanted in the mind by early training. +What the Catholic Church affirms is false from +beginning to end, and History shows that the +affirmations of the Catholic Faith have been thus +man-made step by step from the very first origins +we can discover. The idea of a God is man-made; +so is the sacramental idea, the idea of Incarnation—the +whole affair.”</p> + +<p>Such, as it seems to me, are the historical arguments +against the claim of the Catholic Church to +Divine Authority. Those arguments, tabulated in +the order of their importance, that is, of the power +they wield over a rational human mind fully open +to evidence and to approaches of reason, I will here +set down in graphic form:</p> + +<p>I propose therefore to deal with them in their +order, beginning with the least and going on to the +greatest.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="IV"> + <abbr title="4">IV</abbr> + </h2> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span></p> + +<div style="overflow-x:auto;"> +<table class="autotable" id="TABLE_I"> + +<tr> + <td rowspan="5" style="width: 9em;"> + History shows the Catholic claim to Divine Authority to be false, by: + </td> + <td rowspan="5"> + <img class="lr-brace1" alt="left curly bracket" src="images/left-brace.png"> + </td> + <td colspan="3"></td> + <td rowspan="3"> + <img class="lr-brace3" alt="left curly bracket" src="images/left-brace.png"> +</td> + <td style="width: 12em;"> + (a) The Catholic Church has + taught things later proved + erroneous—which no Divine + Authority would do. + </td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td style="width: 11em;"> + <p class="hanging2"> + <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> The <em>Minor</em> or Moral Argument from History against + the Catholic claim to Divine Authority.</p> + </td> + <td> + <img class="lr-brace2" alt="right curly bracket" src="images/right-brace.png"> + </td> + <td style="width: 6.5em;">which says that</td> + <td style="width: 12em;"> + (b) The Catholic Church has + taught things erroneous after + she knew them to be erroneous—which + no Divine Authority + would do. + </td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td colspan="3"></td> + <td style="width: 12em;"> + (c) The Catholic Church is + highly and increasingly organised—which + no Divinely Authorised + body would be. + </td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td rowspan="2" style="width: 11em;"> + <p class="hanging2"><abbr title="2">II.</abbr> The <em>Major</em> or Intellectual argument from History + against the Catholic claim to Divine Authority.</p> + </td> + <td rowspan="2"> + <img class="lr-brace2" alt="right curly bracket" src="images/right-brace.png"> + </td> + <td rowspan="2">which says that</td> + <td rowspan="2"> + <img class="lr-brace4" alt="left curly bracket" src="images/left-brace.png"> + </td> + <td style="width: 12em;"> + (a) (Protestant) The Catholic + Church can be historically + proved a mass of man-made + accretions upon an original + basis morally true. + </td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td style="width: 12em;"> +(b) (Sceptical or Pagan) The +Catholic Church can be historically +proved to be <em>wholly</em> +man-made in <em>all</em> its structure. +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p class="center x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<i>(Note: the above diagram can be scrolled horizontally.)</i> +</p> + +<h3 id="I_THE_MINOR_OR_MORAL_ARGUMENT"> +(<abbr title="1">I</abbr>) <span class="smcap">The Minor or Moral Argument</span> +</h3> + +<p class="p2">(a) <i>That the Church has been historically +wrong upon a number of facts: a Divine Authority +would not go wrong in this fashion.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span></p> + +<p>We begin by defining what we mean by the +words “the Church,” or that body of pronouncement +by the Church which we call “the Faith.”</p> + +<p>Manifestly, a corporate authority is not responsible +for pronouncements on which it has allowed +divergence: manifestly, again, such an authority is +not responsible for pronouncements on which it has +allowed change without protest. Manifestly, it is +not responsible for pronouncements made not by +itself through its admitted organs of universal +affirmation, but by certain of its body acting as +individuals or even as parts.</p> + +<p>I use the word “manifestly.” This may seem +too strong a term in the ears of those who have +heard precisely these false arguments repeated so +often that the statement of their falsity sounds +novel and strange.</p> + +<p>But if we examine the propositions closely, we +shall see that this word “manifestly” exactly and +inevitably applies in the three cases.</p> + +<p>A particular body makes the awful claim to +Divine Authority and Infallibility. That claim +may be false, and even ridiculous: but “manifestly” +it could not at the same time make the claim and +make an absolutely contradictory claim. For the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span>word “body” substitute the word “man”; let us +suppose a particular man to come forward and say, +“I have Divine Authority to teach. On matters +essential to ultimate human happiness I can give +replies which are infallibly true.” If such a man +were asked, “What do you think the weather will +be to-morrow?” or “What was the date of the +Battle of Hastings?” and he were to answer, “The +weather may be this or that,” or “I cannot tell you +when the Battle of Hastings was fought, but I seem +to remember that it was on such and such a date,” +he is not, when making such replies, acting within +the framework of his tremendous claim. If you +say, “A man making such a claim ought never to +speak at all upon any subject save as an infallible +authority,” you are pre-supposing non-human conditions. +There is no sort of reason why such a man +should not admit his doubts or his ignorance in +things not pertinent to his authority. There is not +even any reason why he should not say with regard +to a particular proposition, “You ask my definition +in this matter: so far I have not defined it; but I +warn you that when I do define it I shall claim my +reply to be infallible.” If he so answer, then the +hypotheses he may be examining in the interval +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>may be numerous and even contradictory one to +the other without their divergence affecting his +claim.</p> + +<p>Tested by this very simple (and I think, conclusive) +parallel, the historical argument drawn +from historical error attributable to the Church +fails. <em>If any man can give a particular instance in +which a specific affirmation has been made by those +organs of affirmation which the Church solemnly +defines as hers, and can say what error, historically +proved, has since attached to such an affirmation +then he shall be met.</em> But no man has brought forward +such a case.</p> + +<p>What such affirmation is to be found? The +history is a long one; it extends over nearly two +thousand years. It is not difficult at all, rather it +is singularly easy and definite to say in any period, +“Here was the Church, these were its accredited +organs of expression, and this was a solemn affirmation +of the Church, not of any individual or of any +part.” For instance, you can read the acts of the +first Council of Ephesus; it was œcumenical; it +acted overtly under Papal authority. Can you give +a point therein defined which has been proved since +to be historically erroneous? or in the Council of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>Trent? or of the Fourth Lateran? or of the Vatican? +or of Nicæa? In which of them have you an +affirmation which History has disproved? There is +none. The more you contemplate that extraordinary +historical phenomenon the more you will be +astonished by it. But I do not advance it as a proof +of the Church’s divine claim. I am here only concerned +with the negative argument. There has not +been in point of fact any official affirmation proceeding +from the accredited organs of the Catholic +Church—not one—from the beginning to the +present day, which has received historical disproof.</p> + +<p>Here it may be objected that such affirmations, +solemnly pronounced as the final decision of the +Church, concern matters which are not of their +nature susceptible of historical disproof; they concern +such matters as the immortality of the soul, +the personality of the Godhead, its triune quality, +the Incarnation, <abbr>etc.</abbr> In other words, since the +Church has not touched on historical matters but +only on metaphysical, she has preserved herself +from attack upon those lines.</p> + +<p>In point of fact, the argument is not strictly conclusive, +for there are exceptional points—for instance, +the Resurrection—in which the Church +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span>might very well have been challenged by clear, +overwhelming, multiple, historical proof—and it +has not been so challenged. But take the contention +for what it is (and in the main it is true) that the +Church, not having dealt with History but with +transcendental truth, has thus escaped historical +error. It at least disposes of the <em>historical</em> argument +against the Faith in that particular. We must under +this particular head—a minor one I admit—accept +the fact that the Faith has not proposed through its +authoritative organs in any of its definitions of +dogma something which <em>History</em> has disproved.</p> + +<p>But what of divergence, and what of change?</p> + +<p>As to divergence, the answer to me seems simple +and brief. Where divergence is admitted, and so +long as it is admitted, infallible pronouncement is +neither claimed nor can be at work. The divergence +is openly between the judgments or affirmations of +individuals or of sections. If the Church, having +definitely pronounced by the voice of her head and +of any of the great councils with which he has been +in communion and which have acted with his +authority—the Council of Nicæa, for instance—something +which in a later age the same authoritative +organs had to deny in the face of new historical +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span>evidence, then there would be a fundamental +divergence and an historical argument against the +claim to Divine Authority. I repeat, as I shall continue +to repeat throughout this brief essay, the +essential point that the argument is negative. I am +not affirming here, and for the moment, that such +consistency is proof of the divinity of the claim—though +it is certainly very remarkable; I am only +pointing out that the consistency <em>is</em> present throughout +History. You may say, if you will, that it is +present because even a human corporation claiming +infallibility would take great care never to contradict +itself. Granted (though I think it would have +its work cut out)! But at least it must be admitted +that the consistency is there, and that, therefore, an +historical argument drawn from inconsistency does +not lie.</p> + +<p>Now what of the more formidable argument +drawn from change? It is not to be doubted as an +historical truth that in one era the general mood of +Christians with regard to a particular point lay in +one direction, in another era, in another. It is +probable, for instance, that the early Church expected +the Second Advent in a more or less brief +period. It is certain that many holy men, perhaps +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>repeating the mood of their time, thought, in an +earlier age, of the state of the dead as one of sleep +awaiting the Resurrection, with no definition of the +Particular Judgment, and so forth. In one period +one devotion prevails; in another, another. One +great doctrine is emphasised in one era; another in a +later era.</p> + +<p>Here, then, is change.</p> + +<p>To which I answer that the change is never—has +never been in any particular instance which any +historian can find and point out—a change of doctrine. +There has never been a definition, never a +pronouncement, by any organ of the Church, saying +“This or that is so,” of which such changes of +mood have later compelled a retraction.</p> + +<p>Had we, for instance, in the early documents of +the Church, a solemn, definite Apostolic statement +that Our Lord would come back to earth in glory +before the destruction of Jerusalem: had we any +trace or echo of a protest raised by some who, disappointed +in the delay of their hopes, laid their +disappointment to the Apostles: had we any echo +of voices in the Apostolic or sub-Apostolic period +saying, “Since He has not come again we are deceived +by the Church”—then the particular case I +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span>have mentioned (and it is only one out of a great +number) would be arguable. But we have none +such.</p> + +<p>Had we a solemn pronouncement registered, as +of the Faith, that the dead lay unliving and out of +communion with us or with life as a whole from +the moment of their passing to the Resurrection of +the Flesh, then the statement that this was a contradiction +with later defined doctrine on the Particular +Judgment and with our prayers for the dead, +would be arguable. But there has been no such +pronouncement.</p> + +<p>In other words, change, in the sense of change of +vague mood, has no more historical weight in this +department than the admitted divergence between +individuals or sections upon matters undefined.</p> + +<p>Before authority has spoken, authority has not +committed itself. When authority has spoken, contradiction +must be established between itself and +itself: or there is no historical argument against the +claim of authority. You may say that there +is no such argument only because authority is +careful not to contradict itself. Well and good; but +it remains true that the contradiction has not taken +place, and that therefore the historical argument +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>based upon it fails. When or if it shall apparently +take place, there will be time to meet such an argument +in its apparent strength. But so far—and the +period, remember, is one far longer than that +attached to any other defined human institution—the +argument does not apply.</p> + +<p>Now, though it is not logically connected with +the strict process of reason I am here developing, +may I not ask the reader rhetorically once more +whether that is not in his eyes a very singular +phenomenon?</p> + +<p>Here is an organised corporation, a strict society, +which has admittedly existed continuously for this +prodigious length of time, through extreme vicissitudes +of knowledge and of ignorance, through the +most violent revolutions of human mood: a society +which sprang up in the brilliant light of Pagan +antiquity and of the half-divine Greek power of +thought, and in the open majesty of the Empire, +which persisted through the darkest periods of our +material ignorance, which lived on through phases +of gross popular credulity and equally gross alternate +phases of popular scepticism; which has been +bathed in the enthusiasm of the twelfth century, +has gloried in the moral splendours of the thirteenth, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span>has struggled through the filth of our +modern time; has suffered the splendid temptations +of the Renaissance; has next found itself struggling +with the base madnesses of Puritan assaults. +Through such endless variety of circumstance it +has remained consistent throughout that long, long +term of centuries; centuries filled with every conceivable +reaction of the human mind, with gusts of +enthusiasm blowing from every point, each in exact +contradiction to some other earlier one. Through +all these the institution which is historically the +oldest and the most permanent of political human +things cannot be discovered affected to change in +any of its final pronouncements by these human +changes. It cannot be discovered in a contradiction.</p> + +<p><span id="TN1">That such a phenomenon</span>—wholly unique in +the story of mankind—should be of human origin +is logically possible. It involves no contradiction +in terms. An unbroken tradition of rigid caution, +coupled with an unceasing consultation of record, +might conceivably produce such consistency by +human agency alone and as the result of human +calculation. But the least we can say is that such +an effect would be different from anything we know +of men and of their actions.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span></p> + +<p>(b) <i>That the Church has maintained error after +knowing it to be error: that it has lied.</i></p> + +<p>The second charge under this head is that the +Church has not only made, in good faith, errors +which she has had to retract, but has actually relied +on falsehood when she knew it to be falsehood and +particularly in the case of errors originally committed +in good faith, but continued with the +deliberate intention to deceive. No Divine Authority +would do that.</p> + +<p>Now the value of such assertions—and they are +frequently made—may be tested <i lang="la">a fortiori</i>, by +taking the two principal classical examples upon +which our opponents especially rely. It would be +impossible to go over the whole category of these +assertions, for they touch innumerable points. But +since they all have in common one similar misunderstanding, +it will suffice to examine two with +perhaps a brief allusion to another.</p> + +<p>These two chief examples I take to be the Donation +of Constantine and the eternal Galileo case.</p> + +<p>Though in each case the wrongful assertion +against the Faith is based on the same fundamental +misunderstanding, yet each exemplifies one of the +two separate chief types of that misunderstanding. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span>The accusation in connection with the Donation of +Constantine exemplifies the supposed deliberate use +of forgery by the Church: the Galileo case exemplifies +her supposed tenacity in demonstrated error—an +authority claiming infallibility and reluctant to +admit that it has been clearly proved fallible.</p> + +<p>Let us see how these two test cases come out of a +close examination.</p> + +<p>It is asserted in the case of the Donation of Constantine +that this document was a forgery: that on +that forgery was based a particular doctrine, to wit, +the supremacy of the see of Peter: that when it was +proved a falsehood the Church continued to defend +it, and that, since her spokesmen were compelled at +last to abandon it, with it there fell the necessary +prop of the Papal contention.</p> + +<p>The Donation of Constantine is a document purporting +to be a grant by the Emperor Constantine +to Pope Sylvester, his contemporary, of civil jurisdiction +over the town of Rome; of temporal sovereignty +over certain adjacent districts in Central +Italy; of sundry ritual dignities in dress and public +office; of the Lateran Palace for a residence in perpetuity; +and with all this the recognition of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>spiritual jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome over +the universal Church.</p> + +<p>It first appeared about the time when the French +Monarchy was supporting the Pope against his +enemies and particularly against Byzantium, and +when that monarchy was preparing the way for +being declared the Empire of the West. It contains +episodes which in a critical age would clearly stamp +it as unauthentic. There is a ridiculous story of a +dragon, for instance, which lived in a cave under +the Capitol. The Emperor Constantine is represented +as receiving baptism from the hands of <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> +Sylvester before he moved his capital to Byzantium; +whereas we now know that he did not receive +baptism till long after, and then not from the Pope, +but from an Eastern Bishop. It represents the +Emperor as being cured by baptism of leprosy—a +disease which he certainly never had—and as +making the donation out of gratitude.</p> + +<p>The whole thing is manifestly mythical and +legendary. But how does that false character affect +the claim of the Church to infallibility in doctrine?</p> + +<p>To answer that question we must begin by granting +all those points, both doubtful and actually +false, which our opponents advance as historical +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>fact; for we shall see that even with the fullest +admission of their imaginary facts, that case has not +a leg to stand upon.</p> + +<p>They tell us that the document was a forgery +(that is, a falsehood) produced with deliberate +intent to support a novel claim upon the part of +the Papacy. It is in fact nothing of the sort. It is +a conglomeration of legend, arisen for the most part +in Syria, the growth of which can be traced through +the centuries. The weight of evidence would show +that it was accepted as true, not first in Rome, but +in Northern France—the policy of whose monarch +it exactly suited. It was first quoted, not in Rome, +but in Rheims. It was not brought in to support +the Papal claims even in temporal sovereignty, let +alone in spiritual jurisdiction, till long after even +the temporal claims had been universally admitted +throughout the West, and the spiritual jurisdiction, +of course, for centuries. Though not authentic, it +does contain an important substratum of truth. It +is pretty evident that the Pope obtained increased +jurisdiction in Rome after the transfer of Imperial +authority to the East. It is virtually certain that +the Lateran Palace became his official residence about +the same time, and though we have not sufficient +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span>record of the steps whereby the Papal Government +gradually came to administrate the Roman district +in the place of the Byzantine Government, which +had less and less real power there (especially after +the Iconoclastic quarrel), yet we do know that such +jurisdiction was exercised long before we find any +mention of the Donation.</p> + +<p>But, I repeat, for the purpose of my argument it +is better to grant to our opponents not only what +is doubtful, but what is certainly false in their supposed +facts. Granted that the Donation was a +forgery, that it had for its evil purpose the artificial +support of novel temporal powers in the see +of Rome, and even of confirming the ancient and +universally admitted spiritual supremacy: what +then? How would such historical facts, if they +were true (which they are not), militate against +Catholic doctrine? Catholic doctrine in the matter +may be very simply stated. You will find it expressed +everywhere by all competent authorities +over a prodigious lapse of time in words almost +identical; for it is as clear as it is brief. That doctrine +is as follows:</p> + +<p>Our Lord constituted the Apostolic College. Of +that College he gave Peter the Primacy. This +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>Primacy by divine constitution successively attached +to the sees which Peter founded, first at Jerusalem, +then at Antioch, finally at Rome. Its power lies not +in the fact that Rome was the capital of the ancient +world, but in the fact that <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Peter chose it for his +final see. This Primacy of the see of Rome is +superior to, and more universal than, its patriarchate +of the West.</p> + +<p>Now against that doctrine historical argument +must show that Primacy was not recognised until +the Donation, if the Donation be the argument in +force.</p> + +<p>There are many other historical arguments, of +course, brought to bear against the original Primacy +of Rome; but I am examining the very strong +example of the Donation as a test case. Take any +one of the innumerable textbooks in which the +fixed and accredited doctrine is laid down, and +examine the chain of evidence, not indeed as to the +divine institution of the Papacy (for that is a matter +of faith, not of History), but as to the original +Primacy of Rome, as admitted by Christians, which +is a matter of History, not of faith.</p> + +<p>The chain reaches down to the very beginnings +of our society. One of our most formidable opponents⁠<a id="FNanchor_1_1" href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span>puts what he calls the “first step in Papal +aggression” as early as <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Clement—that is, within +a lifetime of the Crucifixion. Others may propose +later dates; but no one with a pretence to elementary +historical knowledge would postpone it to the ninth +century, when the Donation of Constantine (in +its present form) appeared. All Church history +is full of Roman Primacy from the moment when +Church history becomes open to detailed examination. +It is implied in the procedure of the earliest +councils; it is openly alluded to in act after act, as +the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries proceed. If +you would call it a corruption, you must put the +origin of that corruption very early; indeed, you +will be compelled to put it within the lifetime of +those who had talked familiarly with the Apostles +and knew their mind and all the tradition of the +very beginnings of the Church. The Donation of +Constantine was no more the foundation of this +Primacy of Rome than the Revolution of 1688 was +the foundation of the House of Lords in England, +or than Lincoln’s Presidential pronouncements during +the Civil War were the foundation of the Presidency +of the United States.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span></p> + +<p>But may it not be said that those who spoke for +the Church as historians claimed the Donation to be +authentic long after it had been questioned? Undoubtedly +they did. And it would have been +astonishing, or rather incredible, if they had not, +for everybody then thought the Donation genuine. +<em>But no doctrine was based on it.</em> In the same way +everybody, Catholic and non-Catholic, accepts the +ecclesiastical history of the Venerable Bede as +genuine, and we use it in support of the connection +between the English Church and Rome. But if it +were proved a forgery to-morrow, the thesis of +union between the English Church and Rome +would remain. But they did not claim it after it +had been definitely proved to be legendary; and the +very fact that they officially admitted their error +and confirmed their admission in final fashion is an +excellent example of the difference between fallibility +as expressed in doctrinal falsehood and the +misapprehension of historical fact. It is an excellent +example of a universal truth present throughout +all the history of the Church, that the Church +brings reason to bear upon every problem, and +regards reason in its own sphere as absolute.</p> + +<p>The first criticisms of the Donation are of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>fifteenth century, coming from Peacock, Bishop of +Chichester, and Valla in Italy. They make no pretence +to being heretical; they have no connection +with any effort to destroy the unity of the Church; +they are not particularly convincing—especially the +latter.⁠<a id="FNanchor_2_2" href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> What exploded the Donation of Constantine +as an historical document was a much longer +process of examination and criticism, which does +not reach its final conclusions till the seventeenth +century. During that process you will find many +who, after the breakdown of unity in the sixteenth +century, were frankly enemies of the Church from +without, not historical critics from within, using +the unauthenticity of the Donation as a weapon for +attacking the whole Catholic scheme; but I doubt +if you will find one case of a believer who regarded +the gradual establishment of the truth as in any way +shaking the doctrine of Papal supremacy. Yet you +have plenty of critics within the Catholic Church +examining the problem in full liberty, and permitted +to come to a right decision upon it. You +have to-day, and you will have throughout the +centuries to come, an indefinitely large body of men +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span>with the fullest historical confidence, great scholars +and experts in this particular point, who are fully +convinced of the legendary character of the Donation, +and yet to whose minds it is inconceivable (as +I confess it is to mine) that anyone should think the +establishment of that historical detail a cause for +doubt in the plain and most ancient doctrine of +Roman supremacy with which it was for some six +centuries out of twenty adventitiously connected.</p> + +<p>Now for the Galileo case. It is so continually +quoted, it is so much the accepted type of such +things, that I might be tempted to go into it at +greater length; on the contrary, I shall deal with it +more briefly, because the points at issue are as restricted +as they are evident, and the complete misunderstanding +upon which the accusation is based +may be exposed by the most elementary statement +of it.</p> + +<p>The accusation runs thus: “Galileo, having discovered +by indubitable physical proof the motion +of the earth, was condemned by the Catholic +Church for stating the same, and her condemnation +remained in force until the nineteenth century, when +she was compelled to allow the matter to lapse.”</p> + +<p>That assertion, the commonest made in all this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span>department of historical attack upon the Faith, contains +two elementary and decisive historical errors. +First, the error that Galileo was condemned for +teaching a then novel particular doctrine which he +proved true; secondly, the error that Galileo was +<span id="TN2">condemned by authority of the Catholic Church</span> +upon a point of doctrine: that is, that the Catholic +Church affirmed in the seventeenth century by her +Infallible Authority as a point in doctrine that the +earth did not move.</p> + +<p>In point of fact, Galileo’s condemnation did not +turn upon his teaching a demonstrated truth, for it +was not yet demonstrated. It did not turn upon a +novel idea in Astronomy, but upon an hypothesis +which was already hoary before Galileo was born; +and the condemnation was not originated against +the idea as an hypothesis, but against the teaching +of it as an established fact. So much for point <i>one</i>.</p> + +<p>Next, as to point <i>two</i>, the condemnation did not +proceed from the Catholic Church. It proceeded +from a particular disciplinary organ of the Catholic +Church, with no authority whatsoever for finally +establishing a point in doctrine. To confuse it with +Catholic definition of doctrine would be like confusing +the definition of a New York court of justice +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>with an amendment to the Constitution. The Pope +himself, as it happened, forbade what would have +been a grave error—though not one binding the +Church—I mean, a full definition of heresy by the +inquisitors upon the matter. But all that is neither +here nor there. There was no definition binding +upon Christians, and has been none, nor ever will +be in such a purely mechanical affair. What there +<em>was</em> was disciplinary action against a man who had +done everything he could to provoke the constituted +authorities of religion by querulous and bitter insult +(he was a difficult character), a man who was unable +to support his own statements in court (nothing +he brought forward at his trial came near to +being conclusive on the motion of the earth, and +much that he brought forward was fantastic),⁠<a id="FNanchor_3_3" href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> and +the action came at the end of an upheaval in which, +by exactly this kind of irrational, angry attitude in +graver matters, the unity of Christendom had been +destroyed. No wonder the authorities had grown +touchy. Moreover, as anyone may see who reads +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span>the trial (and as Huxley saw), Galileo could not +prove his case. It was still only an hypothesis.</p> + +<p>The theory that the earth was not fixed, but +turning on its axis and moving round the sun, had +not only been familiar (as I have said) to educated⁠<a id="FNanchor_4_4" href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> +Europe from long before Galileo was born, but had +been taught with clerical approval <em>as an hypothesis</em> +in Catholic universities; it was taught again in such +universities not long after the Galileo trial as evidence +accumulated, and became a commonplace of +all teaching in Catholic schools and colleges long +before the expunging of the Galilean treatise from +the Index—always, and necessarily, a lengthy +process.</p> + +<p>The whole attack on the Church in connection +with Galileo turns upon these two misunderstandings, +of which the first is unessential, but the second +capital: First, that a proved scientific fact was at +issue; secondly, that this proved scientific fact was +denied, because it was novel, and was denied by +that authority which alone throughout the centuries +had been held competent to establish points +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span>of doctrine, the Papacy and the councils of the +Church over which it spiritually presides. The first +is wrong and the second is wrong. The Copernican +theory was not novel in Galileo’s time; it was still +only a theory. His condemnation accuses him of +returning to the <em>oldest</em> conception (Pythagorean). +He was not condemned by the Church, and the instance +of his condemnation, such as it was, by the +appointed committee, was his persistence in teaching +as a proved fact what was still only hypothesis.</p> + +<p>Before leaving this overemphasised historical detail, +I would like to make clear to the modern +reader what our modern confused habit of mind +often fails to grasp: the difference between teaching +a thing as demonstrated fact and teaching it as +hypothesis, coupled with the difference between +teaching demonstrated fact and teaching metaphysical +or doctrinal conclusions supposedly, but erroneously, +dependent upon that fact.</p> + +<p>For that purpose I will choose a debate familiar +to all our contemporaries: the discussion on the +origins of the human body.</p> + +<p>In the last eighty years a very large and increasing +body of evidence has been accumulated which +points to the probability of the human body’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>having come out of some original sub-human type, +a sort of cousin to (though not descended from) the +greater anthropoids of our own day.</p> + +<p>It may be so. There is nothing in such an +hypothesis against any Catholic doctrine. On the +other hand, it is not proved. Still less is it proved +that the process was of an inevitable sort unconnected +with divine Creative Will. Least of all is it +proved—and indeed, it cannot be proved, for the +thing is manifestly contradictory to our senses—that +man as we know him is not a fixed type, utterly +different in quality from the beasts.</p> + +<p>Now this hypothesis is almost universally stated +to-day as a demonstrated fact—which as yet it +most certainly is not; indeed, the guesses at the +process continue to change year by year, as anyone +can see for himself by looking up the common +manuals of forty, thirty, twenty and ten years ago.</p> + +<p>Further, there is quite commonly tacked on to +it a second statement, that the so-called demonstrated +fact disproves a cardinal Catholic doctrine, +to wit, the Fall of Man.</p> + +<p>Now then, supposing a professor avowedly subject +to the Catholic discipline, professing in a Catholic +society, were to teach (1) that the descent of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>the human body was what the last of our many +successive guesses presumes it to be, and were to +teach that as now certain and indubitable fact, +comparable to the fact of the rotundity of the +earth; (2) that this origin of the human body destroyed +the Catholic doctrine of Original Sin. That +professor would be condemned exactly as Galileo +was condemned. He would be condemned not +because the Church desired to assert that the human +body was <em>not</em> of such hypothetical origin, but because +he had taught as certain what was uncertain; +and he would be condemned upon the infinitely +more important second point (which plain reason +is sufficient to establish) that even if the hypothesis +were already established by indubitable proof, it +could not affect in any way the dogma of the Fall +of Man: they are on different planes and concerned +with totally different subjects.</p> + +<p>The doctrine of the Fall of Man is a transcendental +doctrine. It affirms that man in his completed +nature was intended for a supernatural state, +that his free-will rebelled against the will of God +and that on this account his nature is <em>fallen</em> from +a supernatural to a natural condition. To such a +doctrine the discovery—if ever it should be made—as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>to <em>how</em> the body came to be is utterly indifferent. +If I say, “Young Smith was right enough till he +took to drinking,” it is no answer to tell me that +Young Smith was once a baby who could not take +to any evil, that he gradually grew up, and the +whole process was one of increase and maturing, a +“progress,” and that <em>therefore</em> Young Smith <em>can’t</em> +have taken to drink. That “can’t” is nonsensical. +The process of becoming full grown is no bar to a +moral fall.</p> + +<p>So much for the second of the moral arguments +drawn from History. Let me turn to the third: +That the Church cannot be divine because it is +highly organised, with defined dogmas, a hierarchy, +a whole machinery of rites and laws, whereas a +divinely inspired thing would remain free and +simple.</p> + +<p>(c) <i>That the Church is organised, therefore not +of divine character.</i></p> + +<p>This last or third point made against the Church +is one which haunts the greater part of modern +minds with singular persistence. It is odd that it +should do so; because, of all historical objections +made to the Church, this is the least reasonable. +But it is characteristic of the day in which we live +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>that emotion should take the place of reason and +a certain emotional bias towards an indefinite enthusiasm +(as in music) is a modern disease.</p> + +<p>The objection is that the Church is organised, +whereas whatever is of divine authority on earth +must (so it is presumed) be of a vague, inspirational +sort without organisation or framework—loose, +attaching to the heart and imagination rather than +to the intelligence. Such is the premise—and it is +an enormity.</p> + +<p>For let it be supposed that there be upon earth +one particular defined Divine Authority—such is +the Church’s claim—how would it necessarily act +and be? What would of necessity be its structure?</p> + +<p>The reply is no <em>positive</em> argument in favour of +that claim, but it is a conclusive <em>negative</em> argument +in proof of the contention that <em>if</em> such a claim be +true, then organisation and, as time proceeded, more +and more minute and detailed organisation, would +be an absolutely inevitable condition of action by +such an authority.</p> + +<p>For consider carefully what the implications of +such an authority are?</p> + +<p>Here we are on earth, possessed of certain general +instincts of right and wrong—instincts commonly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span>proceeding to very warped effects in action. We +are surrounded by an infinity of varying circumstances; +our lives are brief; our power of intercommunication +between individual minds is limited. +Granted that there be some <i lang="la">Corpus</i>—some definable +get-at-able person, place, or thing—from which +absolute conclusions may be accepted; then that +thing must be in the form of a society or otherwise +it could not be continuous; it could not survive +among ephemeral beings; it must have rules, or it +could not bind beings imperfectly communicating; +it must have habits, for it must be a living organism. +Societies cannot live without differentiation of function +and definition thereof; separation of one +activity from another; subordination in command; +laws more and more defined; known symbols; ritual. +If anything were designed to act as an institution +with divine authority among men—there might +be no such design nor any such institution—but, I +say, <em>supposing</em> there be such, then whatever was to +act in this fashion must be a society, for it must be +continuous; must be corporate, in order to overcome +the imperfect connection between individual +minds; must tend to more and more complete definition +in its character and being as time proceeds: +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>for otherwise it would not have a human framework +consonant to the human world for which it +would be designed.</p> + +<p>Leave men in doubt as to who is and who is not +a member of such a society; let it be uncertain by +what tests membership may be recognised, acquired +or lost, and the whole character and personality of +the divinely appointed Thing disappears: with personality +disappears the faculty of diction, of affirmation, +for which (by definition) it was conceived. +And, indeed, so you find the Church from its +origins: sacraments at once appearing, communion +and excommunion, doctrine more and more defined +as the generations pass and doubts or controversies +arise, ritual embryonically present at its very outset +and rapidly stabilised: from the beginning you have +it certainly hierarchic, disciplined, bound in a strict +framework: and still more certainly (if that be possible) +it shows limitation or outline, a frontier, a +boundary—whereby any man may test who is +within and who is without the Church.</p> + +<p>And if this be true of structure, it is still more +obviously true of doctrine. Granted that there be +such a society with a claim to infallible pronouncement +upon the things essential to the satisfaction of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span>the human soul, how can it proceed save by exact +definition of its pronouncements?</p> + +<p>Begin with the vague and general, though perhaps +intense, conviction that the soul survives death. +Regard it not as a product of affection or of habit. +Accept the mere intuition. What then? Does it +survive as a person or not? The thing is debatable. +If it does not survive as a person, what connection +is there between its survival and good or evil conduct +in this life? If it does survive as a person, how +can such survival hold of our personality, which, +being human, is manifestly of this changeable and +material world?</p> + +<p>If it be said that no answer can be given to these +questions, then we deny the existence of such an +authority as I here presume. I do not say that +these questions and the replies to them are a proof +of the truth of such authority. I say that on the +hypothesis that such an authority is to be found on +earth, then necessarily it must of its very nature +<em>define</em> doctrine upon such matters as these, pronouncement +upon which is its whole reason for +being.</p> + +<p>As each controversy of importance arises some +new definition will necessarily be demanded of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span>authority. Therefore, though doctrine itself does +not grow—for it concerns truths outside time—definition +of doctrine will grow. The time in +which we live has so largely lost the habit of clear +thought that I must here admit a digression in order +to emphasise and put in the sharpest light the difference +between the growth of <em>doctrine</em> and the growth +of <em>definition</em>.</p> + +<p>Whenever a new definition is given by the Church—<abbr>e.g.</abbr>, +the definition of Infallibility in 1870, the +definition of Transubstantiation in 1215—confused +thinkers, or men who have not read the proceedings, +will assert that a new doctrine has been +invented. A little attention to what passes at the +time of such definitions should be enough to set +them right. The whole debate turns upon the +proof that the doctrine was present from the beginning +and that innovation lies in the denial of it. +The definition is a new thing to meet a new attack +upon an ancient truth. The truth is aboriginal. +Definition no more makes new doctrine than does +a new treatise on geometry make new mathematical +truth. Such matters are expounded and elucidated +in increasing volume; they are not invented. So it +is with the Faith.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span></p> + +<p>From this, turn to another consequence of this +objection to <em>organisation</em> in the Church: the objection +that its machinery and instruments of action +are continually unworthy, base, insufficient, affected +by worldly motives, and that therefore the claim +of the Church to be divine fails.</p> + +<p>That the Church being organised and being +human will suffer from defects inherent to all +organisation and to all humanity is equally certain. +There will be bad administrators, wicked men in +holy charges, abuse of powers. But that is no +answer to the claim of the Church. For consider—what +is the alternative?</p> + +<p>Supposing there be upon earth a definite body of +some kind—corporation, society, officer, what you +will: a definable existent <em>Thing</em> whereto men may +turn for ultimate and certain pronouncements upon +the chief matters of their concern (that is, the nature +of man and his destiny). If that Thing, whatever +form it were to be given, were <em>not</em> organised, then +must affirmation clash with affirmation and whatever +were common to all would divide into a mere +vague mood.</p> + +<p>Now such a mood does not fulfill the requirements +of the <em>Thing</em> in question. You may indeed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span>say (the vast majority of English-speaking people +are saying it to-day) that true religion is of this +vague kind; an instinctive aspiration to unity with +the Divine Will; most would even put it lower still +and say “to unity with nature or the universe.” +They therefore feel that all attempts to systematise +this aspiration, to regulate the enthusiasm, to define +particular dates and cases, to set up the machinery +of a society with laws, officials and decision, is a +warping of the only true living and direct religious +impulse: and certainly if that original and vague +religious impulse in man be the only true religion +and if its value be in proportion to its vagueness, +then organisation is a warping and a lessening of it.</p> + +<p>But remember that in making this statement you +are denying at the outset the possibility of an +authority and therefore contradicting the very affirmation +you make of some certain common truth in +religion. For any authority beyond mere individual +emotion (which changes in each individual +and varies indefinitely among many individuals) +must have a power of definition, must act with a +function, and therefore must be organised in some +degree.</p> + +<p>The choice is unavoidable between organisation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span>in that which can speak with authority and the +rejection of all claim to authority—which is the +rejection of all common or general certitude on +matters not immediately and universally apparent. +In plain words, either you must admit organisation +in your religion or say that no religion is true.</p> + +<p>I would like to make this argument quite clear, +because the great majority of our contemporaries, +at least in the English-speaking world, fail to make +acquaintance with it. I do not say organisation +proves the truth of the contention that the Church +in particular is divine. I say that <em>if</em> there be such a +thing as a divine Church on earth, that Church will +be increasingly organised as the ages proceed, will +perpetually define and re-define, will establish strict +tests and will maintain its vitality by excluding +what is not consonant to its nature; it will operate +through differentiation of function as does every +other living thing. It will have a multitudinous +co-ordination of detail in proportion to the exaltation +of its status, for only thus can it be alive with +the supremely conscious life of the highest +organisms.</p> + +<p>I say again, this is not an argument to the effect +that organisation is a witness to divinity in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span>Church. It is an argument to the effect that <em>if</em> +divinity speaks through any society, <em>then</em> the oracle +of truth will present all the phenomena of organisation; +and so far from these phenomena clashing +with the religious instinct, they alone can give that +instinct its full working value.</p> + +<p>In other words, you admit or you deny a Church. +If you deny it, there is no certain source of truth +present amid mankind; for the religious emotion +of each man changes perpetually, and the emotions +of each among so many millions differ from those +of his neighbour. But if there be a Church, then +organisation must necessarily be the very test of its +reality, as it is the test of all the higher forms of life +we know.</p> + +<p>When, therefore, we Catholics meet, as we do +daily and in a thousand forms, such objections as: +“If this dogma were true, it would be universally +apparent”; “If that doctrine were part of the universal +truth, it would not be arrived at by special +conclaves of particular men fulfilling highly defined +functions and even dressed in a peculiar manner of +their own”; “This elaborate definition of the Real +Presence jars with true devotion to the Eucharist, +which is a thing of the heart and a mystery beyond +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span>analysis,” and so forth, in a myriad different forms +of objection, we reply: “If, of mysteries such as the +Eucharist or the continued life of man after death, +or of the more familiar mysteries of personality, of +time, of eternity, we have no definitions, then falsehood +can be present and received as truth. There +is indeed no need to define, so long as all are implicitly +agreed; but the moment one says (of the +Eucharist, for instance), ‘There is a Presence here +but it is spiritual only; the bread remains,’ then +must, of necessity, the claimer to infallible truth +(unless she is to nullify her own claim) lay down +whether that proposition be true or not: whether +the bread remains, or does not remain, after consecration. +Otherwise two members of a society existing +to teach true doctrine will, on a fundamental +and essential doctrine, be holding two contrary +views, one of which at least must be false.”</p> + +<p>It would be easy to point to any number of other +cases of more interest to the average modern man +than the case of the Eucharist, in which he has lost +all communion; for instance, to the mystery of +immortality, and the discipline rather than the doctrine +of our attitude towards the dead. Two members +of this society claiming infallibility are faced +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span>with the practice of necromancy, the calling up of +the dead (a favourite pastime of our day among the +wealthy). The one feels in the strongest fashion +that in this exercise he is upon the confines of positive +evil. He smells the Pit. The other is convinced +that it is indeed the blessed dead who visit +him and with whom he is in communion.</p> + +<p>Which is right? The infallible authority cannot +abdicate in such a crux without denying its own +claim. There is no reconciliation of such a contradiction: +it is Hell or Heaven. It must define and +it does define; and we know on which side its +definition lies. Necromancy—or Spiritualism as its +modern name goes—is of Hell.</p> + +<p>In general, then, the moral arguments against +the Church as drawn from History—that is, from +the record of its action—fail from one of two +causes: either they misconceive the nature of the +Church (<em>what</em> it is that speaks with Infallible +Authority; <em>on what</em> it has spoken with Infallible +Authority), or they are confused as to the implications +of religion, not perceiving that, if you are to +admit any criterion of truth other than that of +common experience, you must admit external +authority; and that, once you admit an external +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span>authority in the final and all important questions, +you admit a Church.</p> + +<p>Such considerations do not establish the claim of +the Catholic Church, but they destroy certain particular +objections to that claim, drawn from the +supposed clash between the moral character of the +Church’s claim and the historical record of the +Church making such a claim.</p> + +<p>From these I turn to what I have called the major +objection of modern times: the intellectual objection; +the objection that History shows the structure +of the Catholic Church to have proceeded from +man.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_THE_MAJOR_OR_INTELLECTUAL_ARGUMENT"> +<abbr title="2">II.</abbr> <span class="smcap">The Major or Intellectual Argument</span> +</h3> + +<p>The last and much the most important division +of the arguments based upon History against the +Catholic claim is, in general, the argument that the +Church cannot be the divine thing it claims to be +because it is in its essence demonstrably man-made: +it is in its essence, and can be proved by History to +be, of human institution, betraying all those characteristic +illusions which man conjures up and imposes +upon himself in all his efforts to reach out +to the unknowable and unattainable of his desire.</p> + +<p>This—by far the most serious historical form of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span>attack upon the Faith—falls into two distinct +branches, which I will call for the sake of brevity +(without pretence to the full accuracy of the terms +and certainly with no intention of using them +abusively) the <i>Protestant</i> and the <i>Pagan</i>. I mean +by the <i>Protestant</i> argument that argument against +the Faith drawn from History which maintains that +the Church has suffered fundamental corruption +and has lost some presupposed original character +through the increasing delusions of the human +mind. I call the <i>Pagan</i> or purely Sceptical argument +that which denies, on the testimony of History, +that there ever has been a divine Church at all, or +any clear revelation of divine things to men at any +time or in however simple a form, and proposes +to prove that all the doctrine of the Church is of +man’s own making.</p> + +<p>These two I will take successively, maintaining +the order I have throughout, to wit, attending to +the least important before approaching the more +important.</p> + +<p>I take it that in the times in which we live the +Protestant objection, even in its vaguest form, is the +less formidable. I shall take it first. I shall conclude +with what is, in my own judgment, far the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span>most formidable attack at this moment, and likely +to become still more formidable in the near future, +the Pagan or purely Sceptical attack: the argument +from History that <em>all</em> religion is man-made, that +the Catholic Church must be included in the category +of man-made things, and that therefore the +Catholic Church has no claim to Divine Authority.</p> + + +<p>(a) <i>The Protestant argument from History.</i></p> + +<p>Throughout the story of the Catholic Church, +<abbr>i.e.</abbr> during all the last nineteen hundred years,⁠<a id="FNanchor_5_5" href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> +there have continued recurrent protests against this +or that doctrine: recurrent affirmations that some +other doctrine, contrary to the authoritative definition, +is true, and that the authoritative definition +is itself false. From these denials and affirmations +have proceeded what are called, in Catholic terminology, +the various heresies.</p> + +<p>But towards the end of the Middle Ages these +protests gathered together in a new form, which +was essentially an appeal to History, and to their +general character was applied the term “Protestant.” +We need not quarrel over the term or its derivation. +It has been, by universal agreement, applied during +the last four hundred years.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span></p> + +<p>The Protestant challenge to the Catholic Faith is +essentially a challenge based upon History. It proposes +to show by historical evidence that whereas +there was some original body of true revelation, this +has been distorted, corrupted and overlaid, and that +the Catholic Church with its perpetual accretions +of doctrine, ritual and office is more and more +divergent from, or even contrary to, the divine +original thus presupposed.</p> + +<p>The Protestant argument still exists even when +it is put in its most vague and tenuous modern +form. Even those who say, as do so many to-day +(believing themselves to be pure sceptics), “I accept +the mission of Jesus Christ as salutary to mankind +and as containing eternal verities, which it is essential +that man for his good should know; but I +reject all supernatural statements in connection with +this mission,” are still essentially Protestants.⁠<a id="FNanchor_6_6" href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> They +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span>presuppose some original nucleus, however restricted +on content and in time, which they postulate +as good and true.</p> + +<p>The most extreme case—and to-day the most +common one—the case of the man who says he +takes the four canonical Gospels, and these alone; +that he rejects Pauline theology as a corruption, a +man-made thing proceeding from the man Paul; +that he rejects in the Gospels themselves every element +which affirms or implies the miraculous +powers of Jesus Christ, His claim to divinity, His +Resurrection and the rest, is still a Protestant case. +He affirms that the Sermon on the Mount (to which +he is oddly attached) and sundry general propositions +upon humility, charity and other Catholic +virtues, are good: and in saying that they are good +he is saying that they are true. His quarrel is not +with the whole Catholic scheme, but with everything +in the Catholic scheme beyond what he has +chosen for himself out of the mass of Catholic +teaching.⁠<a id="FNanchor_7_7" href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + +<p>Now let us put down at the beginning of the +debate one common element upon which all should +be agreed: there <em>has</em> been development; and in so +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span>far as development involves change, there has been +in that sense, and in that alone, change. What is +more, the development continues, and in so far as +the word “change” may be applied to development, +change continues.⁠<a id="FNanchor_8_8" href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>The definitions of the Council of Trent are immensely +more elaborate than the Apostles’ Creed; +the Apostles’ Creed (probably dating from <span id="TN3">the +earliest origins of the Church</span> though it does, and +at the latest, in its essentials, a second-century +Roman form) has more exact definition in it than +the Gospel; the ritual of the Mass is not identical +in every place; it is not identical through time. The +Liturgy at once expanded and crystallised as the +generations proceeded. Even within the brief space +of a few centuries it is possible to point to portions +of the Roman Mass (to take but one form) which +began as voluntary or optional prayers and which +became incorporated in the regular structure of the +Sacrifice. One might even say that certain slight +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span>additions of quite recent origin may, in the near +future, follow the same course. The bishop, the +priest and the deacon of the original Church formed +a far simpler body than does the vast organisation +of the Hierarchy to-day, and new special worships +of this saint or that, new shrines, and all the rest +continually arise. The argument in no way turns +upon either side (for men of intelligence or information) +on so obvious and elementary a truth +as that such development exists. It is common +ground upon which both must proceed. Where +they differ is upon the point whether or no such +development has introduced a fundamental change +of character into the Catholic Church with the +passage of the centuries.</p> + +<p>A parallel will explain what I mean. Two men +observe a tree. One says, “It is an oak, in full vigour”; +the other says, “No, it was of oaken origin, +but there has been grafted upon it another growth +and the whole is thus not only warped and transformed, +but in my eyes diseased. It is not an oak.”</p> + +<p>The first man, who says, “It is a living oak +consonant in all its parts,” does not deny that the +acorn is different from the mature tree: the young +sapling different in form from either the original +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span>acorn or the tree as it now appears. He does not +deny that in a hundred years the form of the tree +will seem to have changed still more; that in the +fifty years past it has changed. What he denies is +that there has been any change in that by which an +oak is an oak. It is essentially the thing which it +has always been. That is his contention. Its +growth is normal to its nature, and in so far as +growth involves change, such change is the very +proof of identity.</p> + +<p>His opponent denies this. He says it was an +oak once, long ago, but other plants grafted on it +have so changed its nature that it can be called an +oak no longer.</p> + +<p>The appeal of the one is not to a supposed dead +mechanical rigidity; it is not an affirmation that he +has before him an acorn rather than an oak; it is +to that principle of one-ness by which any thing is +what it is. The appeal of his opponent is not to +the mere fact of change (at least he must be very +unintelligent if that process destroy in his eyes all +essential unity in the developing thing); it is rather +to the proposition that the changes were of a disfiguring +and (to borrow a foreign word) “denaturing” +kind. The one says, “Here is the same original +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span>organism, in full health and strength, growing and +vigorous before our eyes.” The other says, “These +changes, which I can substantiate by the consultation +of old pictures and written records of the +thing, are a proof of disease and of corruption.”</p> + +<p>It is therefore quite beside the mark for the opponents, +upon historical grounds, of some particular +institution essential to the Catholic Church—for +instance, the Primacy of Peter—to prove by +elaborate reference to record that the Papal power +under <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Clement was embryonic compared with +the Papal power under Innocent <abbr title="the Third">III.</abbr> It is quite +beside the mark to bring forward, at too much +pains, evidence on, say, the doctrine of the Real +Presence to prove that its definition in the Council +of Trent is far more elaborate, exclusive and exact +than the statement of it in Justin Martyr, fourteen +hundred years earlier. The point is that the one +party to the controversy regards such change—if +you like to call it change—as an inevitable and +salutary phenomenon of life and a very proof of +unity in character and time: the other, as a phenomenon +opposed to the true life of the thing and +a proof of its loss of identity with its original principle +of life.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span></p> + +<p>Now in my view there are two tests which one +may apply to what I have called the Protestant +argument from History: two tests by which one +may discover that it rings false. And these I would +tabulate as follows:</p> + +<p>(1) The test of Innovation.</p> + +<p>(2) The test of Critical Date.</p> + +<p>By the test of Innovation I mean an historical +examination to discover whether orthodox doctrine—not +points doubtful or still controversial within +the Catholic body, but defined truth—as propounded +by the Catholic Church upon any given +matter, at any given moment, had the character of +an innovation, contrasting in essence with the development +of the past; or whether on the contrary +it was the denial of such doctrine, the counter-affirmation +provoking such definition, which bore +this character of innovation and novelty. If the +first view be the true one, then the Catholic Church, +false or true, has at least been in all its life one personality +consistent with its own essence, and the +successive definitions have all been in the line of +tradition. But if the opposing view be established, +then indeed corruption and error and therefore the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span>absence of her Infallible Authority have been +proved.</p> + +<p>As to what I have called the test of Critical Date, +I mean (what should be surely an obvious truth) +that if the story has been a process of warping and +corruption, there should be some discoverable stage +at which this deflection began, and if the fixing of +this stage be not only doubtful, but disputed in +a hundred forms and set at widely separated epochs, +differing by centuries, then the objection is ill-founded.</p> + +<p>I would not be so pedantic and at the same time +so logically weak as to demand of my opponent the +fixing of a particular instant in which he discovers +error originating. All such things, whether true +developments or corruptions, take place in time; +none springs up apparent in a single moment. All +grow. But I do say that if a plain historical phenomenon +of corruption has taken place in this or +that—for example, the doctrine of the Eucharist—its +inception must be observable within at least a +certain range of years, a generation at the most. +Such is the test of Critical Date.</p> + +<p>I will now examine the matter by both these +tests: Innovation and Critical Date.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span></p> + +<p>(1) As to the first test, it is historically true—and +once again, a very strange thing—that in every +single case it is the protest against orthodoxy which +has had the character of an innovation, and never +the orthodox affirmation which has appeared as a +novelty.</p> + +<p>I will explain in a moment how an attempt +might be made by our opponents to get over even +this difficulty; but at any rate, as far as plain History +is concerned, that remarkable fact which I have just +stated is true.</p> + +<p>You may take the whole list, from Cerinthus, +who was a contemporary of the Apostles, down to +Brigham Young and his Mormons, or to the latest +Modernist, and you find in every case without exception +the test working true. The heresiarch (as +we Catholics call him) or the reformer, or prophet, +or whatever other flattering term you may like to +use in contra-distinction to heresiarch, appears as +an innovator to the generation whom he disturbs, +or to which he appeals. His doctrine comes as a +<em>new</em> doctrine, with all the shock and also all the +appeal of novelty. There is not any one case in the +long story of the Church where we can trace a +steady protest against <em>any</em> one of her fundamental +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span>doctrines, a protest appearing at the origins and +increasing as the doctrine is more and more clearly +defined. Nor is there any one case of a definition +of orthodox doctrine appearing suddenly and with +all the effect of an innovation. No doubt each +reformer makes the claim that he has rediscovered +the old original truth, long overlaid, but my point +is that, when he and his doctrine appear, it is <em>they</em>—not +the things they oppose—which invariably +appear as sharp and, to most men, offensive +novelties.</p> + +<p>I have called that phenomenon in the story of +the Catholic Church remarkable; it is even startling. +I know of no other society to which this aspect of +reform or re-action applies. If you will consider +for a moment the psychology of the affair, judging +it by your personal knowledge of the way in which +your own mind works, and the minds of the men +about you, you will, I think, perceive its unique +character.</p> + +<p>After all, what happens in our minds with regard +to any form of degradation? For instance, +what happens to-day with regard to a misquotation +in literature or a warping of function in politics?</p> + +<p>The first misquotation takes place, and is challenged. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span>The bad habit grows, but it is still +challenged here and there: the challenge is maintained. +Each time it is challenged the error is +admitted, but unfortunately spreads. Sometimes +there comes at the end of the process a violent +re-action; literary men swarm together (as it were) +and insist upon the misquotation being driven out; +and sometimes they succeed.</p> + +<p>Or again, as to the warping of a political institution. +Representative institutions were founded +to be representative. People soon find out that they +are only imperfectly representative: that they tend +to represent the avarice or vanity of the individual +delegates much more than the mandate of those +who sent them to the representative assembly. +What happens? Immediate protest; repeated protest; +attempts at reform. Sometimes the reform +makes good, the fear of God is put into the politicians, +and the representative institution is purged +and brought up with a round turn, and compelled +to do its duty.</p> + +<p>You may take the whole range of human action +in this respect, and you will invariably find a +process of this kind. It is common sense. Men do +not allow their conception of a thing to be deflected +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span>by falsehood or laziness or illusion without sharply +re-acting against that deflection. All History is full +of the corruption of institutions—and of men; but +all History is most emphatically <em>not full</em>—in fact, +in all History you will not find an example—of the +corruption taking place without its being noted and +resisted.</p> + +<p>Now here, in the case of Catholic doctrine, you +have the singular fact that the process is the other +way about. There is no protest till after the doctrine +has become fixed. Take the case of the doctrine +of the Incarnation. Whether true or false, it +is certainly present before Cerinthus. The man +who most violently combats Cerinthus’ statement +that Our Lord suffered as man and not as God is +one of our Lord’s own companions, <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> John—a +witness who had known Our Lord on earth, which +Cerinthus never had. That is no proof that the +doctrine is true; but it is proof of the historic fact +that Apostolic society believed in the doctrine and +that the first heresy in the matter was an innovation.</p> + +<p>Or take the doctrine of the Eucharist. For centuries +the Real Presence was accepted; in general +terms, it is true, but accepted none the less. You +get it unmistakably from the Words of Institution +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span>right on for a thousand years. You can argue +against the <em>intention</em> of the early statements based +upon the words of institution. You can say that +those who first alluded to the Eucharist did not +intend the full doctrine of later times. You can +say that the Words of Institution in the Gospel were +only used by Our Founder metaphorically. You +may say that the famous description of the Mass in +Justin Martyr nearly eighteen hundred years ago did +not connote the exact doctrine of Transubstantiation. +You may quote (as Cranmer did) passages +from <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Augustine which permit the special pleader +to use them (if he leaves out the context and refuses +to mention other passages) as evidence of a subjective +rather than an objective Presence. But the +plain historical fact remains that there is not one +single protest heard during all the centuries during +which the Christian Church did take the Real Presence +for granted, and built up round that accepted +doctrine the whole mass of the Liturgy in East and +West. It remains true that you can find no resistance +against this universal attitude. Though there +is metaphysical discussion, there is not a case of a +man saying, “The original doctrine was not that of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span>Real Presence: such doctrine is a corruption only +just introduced, and I protest against it.”</p> + +<p>When the protest comes it is after thirty generations, +at the end of the Dark Ages; and it produces +a violent effect of innovation, of novelty.</p> + +<p>I submit that no matter what particular defined +doctrine in the Catholic scheme you may select, you +will find without exception this most notable character +attaching to it, that when denial of it was +made within the Christian community—as when +Arius denied the consubstantiality of the Son, or as +when Nestorius denied the divine motherhood of +Our Lady—it had the effect of a stone thrown at a +pane of glass and breaking it: the startling effect of +a shock; of something quite unexpected and exceedingly +and unpleasantly new.</p> + +<p>I myself who am writing this did, when I was a +young man and very imperfectly instructed, take +for granted the opposite. I thought, for instance, +that the doctrine of the Trinity had very slowly +arisen, that an original ignorance of Our Lord’s full +divinity was gradually dispelled by the development +of the doctrine; that the earlier the evidence +was, the less it would confirm the doctrine; and +that Arius was fighting a sort of rear-guard action: +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span>defending a cause which had once been vigorous +but was lapsing through the process of time. I +thought that; and I fancy most ordinary educated +men who have not had the leisure or desire to read +the evidence in detail think something of that sort +with regard to the story of almost any one of the +Christian mysteries. For, after all, the process is +exactly what one would expect. One would expect +any original statement in human affairs to be commonplace +and straightforward, and the supernatural +interpretation of it to come in by a process of accretion +and illusion such as creates the innumerable +legends and myths of mankind: <span id="TN6">first the teacher is +a revered man</span>, then vaguely thought to have something +in him of the divine, then to be some sort of +divine being, and, lastly, a God.</p> + +<p>It was when I came to read the evidence and look +closely into the matter for myself that I began to +feel the surprise which I record here and which any +one of my readers will also feel if he will read the +actual evidence instead of guessing at what sounds +most probable. The evidence is clear that the +Trinitarian doctrine, growing in definition, was +never put forward with novel and protested accretions. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span>It was the Arian challenge which was new +and immediately resisted.</p> + +<p>It is the same with the mystery of the sacrament. +Let anyone who believes the doctrine of the Real +Presence in the Eucharist to have grown up very +gradually as a sort of legend or myth, an accretion +overlaying some originally straightforward and in +no way mysterious ceremony, read the words in +which the earliest writers who refer to the matter +at all speak of it. Let him not only read the way +in which they speak of it, but the way in which +they acted. When that young boy in the streets of +Pagan Rome allowed himself to be killed rather +than show to the profane What he carried veiled +in his hands, it is evident that he did not think it +common bread. When we find in all the very +earliest evidence of Liturgy insistence upon and +repetition of the mystery, it gives us to think. I +say again, for the twentieth time, as I have said at +so many other points in this debate, all this is not +a proof of the truth of the doctrine, but it is a proof +that the historical process with regard to the doctrine +is not that of corruption and essential change +which our opponents have presumed it to be. It is +a proof that, true or false, the mystery of the sacrament +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span>now held was originally held, and that the +attack upon this doctrine, as upon any other, came +as a novelty.</p> + +<p>I have said that even this phenomenon, unparalleled +as it is in the tale of human thought, was +capable of explanation by an opponent. But I +think if we examine that explanation we shall find +it to fail.</p> + +<p>The explanation is as follows: You are dealing +with a body of fervid believers. As time proceeds +the excesses, the delusions, the vagaries, proceeding +from their very enthusiasm, permeate their body +insensibly, and it is only when the process has gone +a considerable length that, with a shock, some +strong and lucid brain confronts the deluded with +reality. Hence (it is said) the novelty of each +heresy and the startling effect produced by the first +statement of each heretical proposition. This is +certainly true of abuses, as for instance the abuse of +image worship, when it came to such a pitch that +men accepted without question a mass of images, +supposed to have appeared in some miraculous +fashion without human workmanship. And if it +be true of abuses which are recognised to be abuses +by all, why should it not be true of fundamental +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span>doctrines, considering the blind fervour of which +I have spoken and the natural consequences of such +fervour?</p> + +<p>My answer to that explanation is that the cases +are not sufficiently numerous to establish a rule. It +is true that you do get some few cases, very few, of +abuses which proceed some way before they are +abolished. But they do not go on long without +being pulled up, nor are they so general and manifold +as to militate against our judgment that, almost +in proportion to its importance, the doctrine or +mystery, when it is challenged, is challenged by a +new force.</p> + +<p>Moreover, there is this consideration. In the few +cases where there is the analogy of an admitted +abuse somewhat tardily reformed, all in the Church +ultimately accept the reform. But this is not at all +the case with regard to the main orthodox doctrine—quite +the other way.</p> + +<p>In every historical case of abuse, whether it be +the erroneous acceptation of a false document (as in +the case of the Donation) or an abuse of excess, as +in the case of the exaggeration of image worship, +the traditional forces of this Sacred Society admit +the moral or clerical error, and usually they begin +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span>to admit it in increasing numbers from the moment +of the first challenge. But in the case of orthodox +doctrine it is not so. It is just the contrary. It is +the doctrine that stands and the heresy which gradually +dies out.</p> + +<p>Of specific heresies which have attempted to +maintain but a part of truth while rejecting the +rest, all without exception have gone through a +process of rapid growth, culmination and decay, +and nearly all have at last wholly faded. That is +not true, of course, of pure scepticism. That we +shall always have with us, for it is native to the +human mind. A complete denial of the whole +Catholic scheme, that is, a complete rejection of all +that is unfamiliar and does not repose upon evident +proof immediately acceptable to everyone; a +denial of all mystery and especially of specific doctrinal +affirmation, is as natural to man as breathing, +for faith is of grace and is exceptional to Nature. +But the heresies, as distinguished from such general +rationalist denial, never have in them the vitality +which continues to urge orthodox tradition.</p> + +<p>That is historical fact; and it is an historical fact +which should give every man who is seriously +examining these things grave food for thought.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span></p> + +<p>Take the example which is most familiar to the +older members of the present generation in English-speaking +countries other than Ireland: I mean, the +attitude towards Holy Writ.</p> + +<p>Here heresy began by setting up the literal interpretation +of Scripture (and the personal judgment +of the reader upon it) in opposition to the authority +of the Catholic Church. The Catholic tradition +in the matter was that (1) Scripture was the Word +of God; but (2) given us not as a record of science, +or even History, so much as a witness to the Church +and particularly to the Incarnation; and (3) was +only to be accepted in the sense which the authority +of the Catholic Church admitted.</p> + +<p>As against that ancient Catholic attitude towards +the Bible came, as a novelty, the fierce affirmation of +its absolute and literal authority and of its being +plainly interpretable for himself by every reader.</p> + +<p>We are all witnesses to what has happened in +that particular example.</p> + +<p>The heresy, after nearly three hundred years of +vigour, has gone to pieces. The Bible outside the +Catholic Church has lost authority. The original +Catholic position remains. Indeed, there is a comic +irony in noting that it is we Catholics to-day who +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>are thought old-fashioned in maintaining our +respect for the text of Scripture and in being slow +to admit all the modern guess-work in derogation +of it. So much for the test of Innovation.</p> + +<p>(2) I turn to the second test, the test of Critical +Date.</p> + +<p>If it be true that the Catholic Church is the +warping and corruption of an originally delivered +truth, then that warping and corruption must have +had an origin.</p> + +<p>I am walking by night along a road which is +laid out upon the map for miles due east and west; +but after so walking for some time I begin to notice +by the stars that the road is bending. It turns +more and more southward. The map has misled +me. In such a case I can, when daylight returns, +retrace my steps and I shall find the point of flexion. +I may not be able to establish it to a yard, nor even, +if the process be at first very gradual, to a quarter +of a mile; but I shall at least be able to say, “Up to +this point it was dead straight, pointing west. +After this point (say, as much as a mile further on) +it is clearly bending south of west, and I find it +bending more and more southward as I proceed.” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span>If not a point at least a section of flexion can be +established.</p> + +<p>Now there is this remarkable historical fact +about the process of the Catholic Church—that its +Protestant opponents, all agreeing in its loss of +direction, cannot agree as to when that loss began. +There is not and apparently cannot be any general +conclusion upon so simple an historical matter as +to even the main historical section—first century, +second, third, fourth, eleventh—in which this point +of flexion lies. For one body of Protestant thought +it is found in what they call “Counter-Reformation” +of the sixteenth century. It was then that +the Catholic Church went wrong, with its exaggeration +of Papal power, of Eucharistic ritual, its +more mechanical organisation of the Sacrament of +Penance, and all the rest of it. In the fifteenth century +the Church of England, of France, of Castille +were all (rightly) in communion and their common +authority was sound. By 1600 it was lost. For +another set of Protestants the change was the opening +of the Middle Ages—what is called the “Hildebrandine +Movement” of 1050–85. Until then +Christendom was proceeding in consonance with its +tradition. The see of Peter had Primacy indeed, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span>but had not developed a highly detailed jurisdiction +over a vast number of personal and national affairs. +The discipline of celibacy among the clergy in the +West (so they tell us) had been optional; its universal +enforcement was a corruption. The monastic +institution had been free and sincere; it slowly +became, after that date, enslaved to the Papal power +and to Mammon, and was more and more a scandal +of insincerity. Others would find the point of +departure in the ignorance and loss of material +powers which mark the entry into the Dark Ages. +The fifth and sixth centuries are the wide sections +in which to seek the point of flexion and of decline. +Others are willing to accept as traditional and on +the right line the Christendom of Gregory the Great +and <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Augustine of England; but the ninth century +is a breaking point and the tenth a final collapse; +by the time of Marozia the Church had +clearly lost an original character which it never recovered, +and that new and degraded thing, the +mediaeval Church, had begun to appear. The +Church was never more the same. For some few +of my own acquaintance the dreadful moment is +1870; the right way was lost with the definition of +the Infallibility of the Pope. For others again it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span>is the thirteenth century, with its developing organisation +for the repression of heresy and its too strict +definition of the sacrament. For a very great body +of men in the immediate past (now a smaller +number) things began to go wrong with the freedom +of the Church under Constantine. Then did +lay and state corruptions, imitations or influences +of the old Pagan society, begin to thwart the divine +scheme.</p> + +<p>The most popular of the latest Protestant theories +is that the thing went wrong almost at once +between Pentecost and the predication of <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Paul, +and that <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Paul was the author of the evil transformation +into a mystery religion of what had +before been an ethical society upon the suburban +model. As their phrase goes, “Nothing can bridge +the gulf between the Gospels and the Pauline +writings.” A lifetime ago the point of flexion was +put later. In the Protestant thesis of the mid-Victorian +day the corruption began about the end of +the second century. <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Paul was accepted, but +already there was trouble beginning, as revealed in +the authentic epistles of <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Ignatius; and manifestly +things were becoming Catholic (and therefore corrupt) +by the time of the African Martyre, and were +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span>hopeless by the time of the Thirty Tyrants. For +these scholars the Catholic taint is the natural +accompaniment of the decline of civilisation after +the Antonines.</p> + +<p>Now I am not saying that because there is dispute +upon the moment of flexion in any directive +scheme, because there are debate and diverse opinion +upon the point where an upright original began to +go wrong, that therefore one may conclude it never +did go wrong. But I am free to maintain that such +enormous disparities of opinion, and such a ceaseless +shifting of it, would be impossible if a plain +historical process were at work.</p> + +<p>When we consider, for instance, the popular +monarchy of the English, that is, the government +of England by a king, aided indeed by other powers, +but having in his own hand the main force of the +executive, there may be some debate as to the moment +in which these powers began to fall off, until +they reach the purely symbolic or nominal situation +in which they are to-day, when the king no longer +governs at all but is the neutral chief of society. I +myself should put it as early as the reign of +Edward <abbr title="the Sixth">VI</abbr>, and I should say it had become marked +under the elder Cecil at the beginning of Elizabeth’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span>reign. It is more usual to say that the great +change came under Charles <abbr title="the First">I</abbr>, and certainly it was +clinched by the civil wars. There are even perhaps +some who maintain that monarchy was still +in the main more powerful than any other political +factor until the Dutch invasion of 1688. But at +any rate it lies within these two lifetimes—1550 to +1690. No one will deny that the process had begun +in the latter half of the sixteenth century; no +one will deny that it was thoroughly accomplished +before the end of the seventeenth.</p> + +<p>It is so with all other historical phenomena of +the kind. You can put within the limits of a lifetime, +and not a very long lifetime, the transformation +and decline of the Roman Empire during the +third century. You can see clearly that feudalism +was a living social system under Henry <abbr title="the Third">III</abbr> of England +and even under Edward <abbr title="the First">I</abbr>, but that it was no +longer the spiritual motive of society after the Black +Death. You may take any process you like +throughout History, and you will find this to be +true; not that you can always put your finger upon +a particular year or event, let alone a particular +moment, but that you can say, “Within this comparatively +narrow limit of time the change takes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span>place, certainly the institution was living within its +traditions and in the direction determined by its +originals as late as such and such a moment; certainly +after such and such a moment, not long subsequent, +it is as clearly failing to keep that original +direction.”</p> + +<p>But here, in the case of the Catholic Church, her +opponents can say nothing of the kind. If they +could, not only would scholarship be roughly +agreed among our opponents as to the Critical Date, +but we ourselves should at last be agreed, as we are +agreed with regard to attack upon abuses, in the +long run—though never with regard to the attack +on doctrine.</p> + +<p>But there is no such agreement, and can be none; +for the simple reason that the Catholic Church has +not thus warped or veered but has remained herself. +So by this second test I conclude that the +historical objection is false.</p> + +<p>It seems to me that an impersonal observer, say +some historical student from the extreme Orient, to +whom the whole Catholic scheme was indifferent +and who cared nothing whether the original institution +of the Catholic Church had failed (because +he had no affection for that institution and no belief +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span>in any of its doctrines nor any respect for Jesus +Christ nor any attachment to the idea even of a personal +God)—it seems to me, I say, that such a +wholly neutral observer would, upon the general +historical evidence, decide that the Catholic Church +was founded with a certain directive nineteen hundred +years ago, to be correct, about the year 29, and +had remained throughout the successive centuries +consonant with itself. I think he would say of it +<span id="TN4">what we may say with regard to</span> many an ancient +state, “Its personality has survived, its soul is still +the same, its essential unity has not been lost.” He +would add the qualification “yet”; he would conclude, +“The personality <em>yet</em> survives; the continuous +life has not <em>yet</em> been lost.” We of the Faith of +course affirm—but not upon historical evidence—that +the word <i>yet</i> does not apply; that it shall +remain to the consummation of the ages. But for +the purposes of the particular argument which I am +here examining, that is <span id="TN5">neither here nor there</span>. I +say that a mere historical examination with no +reference to the truth or falsehood of the Church’s +claim will conclude that that claim has been continuous +from the beginning, and that the Thing +to-day is essentially what it was when the strict +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span>organisation, the unique phenomenon, appeared in +Syria under the principate of Tiberius. There is +nothing left contemporary with that still vigorous, +still well-favoured, ancient Thing. It has seen the +disappearance of everything in Europe save itself, +and its spring still copiously flows.</p> + +<p>(b) <i>The Sceptical or Pagan objection from +History.</i></p> + +<p>I have said that much the most important form +of historical attack upon the Catholic position, the +most formidable, and to-day the most hardly +pressed, the most lively and the most universal, is +the Pagan or purely Sceptical, the definition of +which I will here repeat.</p> + +<p>It is maintained that the claim of the Catholic +Church to Divine Infallible Authority is baseless, +because it is manifestly man-made. The process of +reasoning is as follows:</p> + +<p>Man is to be discovered in history perpetually +making gods, erecting religious themes, constructing +cosmogonies. It is in his nature thus to project +himself upon the universe and to take his imaginations +for realities. His gods are but large reflected +images of himself; his religious doctrines, from the +petty myths of a small savage tribe to the majestic +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>fabric of Catholicism, are one and all upon the same +model. Each is false, for each differs from the rest; +and all are false, for all are compact of the same stuff +as the others: a stuff bearing plainly the marks of +human emotion and human construction. Now +this prophet is deified, now that chief, now that +other imaginary figure, half legendary or perhaps +wholly without historical existence; and what is +true of any one of these is true also of the Catholic +scheme. The deification of its Founder is an example +of deification like any other. Its elaborate theology +is but a somewhat more developed specimen +of what men have done before us and will do after +us—a spinning of logical systems into the void on +premises that are without substantial basis. Its +affirmations of the miraculous are of the same +legendary sort as those to be discovered in a thousand +other forms; its ritual can be proved to have +cousinship in this point or in that with many another +ritual of sacrifice, expiation and the rest; the +very details of its liturgical life, the mere ornaments, +the host of practices, the great monastic institutions, +the pretty small devotions of light and ornament—all +these are of one material. That material has +been exhaustively examined and is now historically +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span>known. A vast mass of evidence has been accumulated +and continues to accumulate. The more it is +co-ordinated the more clearly this conclusion +appears.</p> + +<p>That is the position we have to meet. That is +the main historical argument against the divine +origin and authority of the Church of God.</p> + +<p>Our fundamental answer to such a position is of +course not historical at all. It is the answer of +faith; as though a man should say, “Yes, this stone +is a stone and there are multitudes of stones, but I +believe this particular stone to be a talisman.” Or +as though he should say, “Yes, this Man was a man, +and there have been countless millions of men; but +this one Man, and this one Man only, was also +God.” The rational basis (not the positive proof) +of such a reply is based upon spiritual experience—upon +our judgment after noting the world, its +reactions towards the Faith, and the effects of the +Faith upon it, that here if anywhere is the divine; +a conclusion coupled with our further judgment +that somewhere there must be present upon earth +the visible action of the divine acting in corporate +fashion through some institution, some society, +some body.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span></p> + +<p>But this main argument does not concern the +little essay which you are reading. I am dealing +only with the value of the historical argument +against the Faith, as I have put it, I think fairly, +into the lips of one of our typical, modern, well-read +opponents.</p> + +<p>Now what is our reply?</p> + +<p>Our reply is that the generalisation is hasty and +inaccurate, and that the more you examine it the +more you discover upon what a false and superficial +basis it reposes.</p> + +<p>There is not a great number of religions, nor has +there been in the past a greater number, apparent +to men of different nations and temperaments, of +which hotchpotch the Catholic Church is but one. +There is not a multitude of systems of theology +falling under the one general category “theologies,” +of which the Catholic scheme is but a single specimen. +Upon the contrary, there is, and has been +for these centuries past, a social and religious phenomenon +<em>unique and comparable to nothing else</em>, +called the Catholic Church. Its spirit, quality, +voice, personality is such that the line of cleavage +does not lie between it and pure scepticism, leaving +on the one side <em>all</em> religions (including Catholicism) +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span>and on the other the free uncertain mind; the line +of cleavage lies between the Faith upon one side and +all other human opinions and moods upon the +other. And this unique character of the Catholic +Church is as plain an historical truth as the astronomical +truth of the reverse rotation of Uranus is +unique among the planets. It claims what no other +society has ever claimed. It affirms its Founder to +have been what no other society claims its founder +to have been. It functions as no other society has +functioned: by an unsupported authority, absolute +in its affirmation.</p> + +<p>It may indeed be granted that in pure theory at +least there is an equal alternative to the unique +thing. One might say that, outside the Catholic +Church, the human mind can stand quite unattached, +examining all things by no criterion save +common experience and the deductive power of the +intelligence. In pure theory there might be a whole +society of such detached (but also quite unrooted) +minds with no certitudes, no ethical predicates, +living upon the void.</p> + +<p>In practice that is not so. There is not one of +us that can point to any mind of his acquaintance, +or to any mind appearing through the pages of a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span>book which occupies such a position. All without +exception betray an ethical theory of some kind, +that is, doctrines which, though the holder of them +may refuse to formulate them, appear in his actions. +Every man is a theologian. Every man has his philosophy +of the world. And viewing man thus as +he is, always a member of some group, we do not +discover as an historical phenomenon any group +save that of the Catholic Church which possesses +the unique character of authority. Conversely, we +find in all other groups the well-known marks +attached to men in all forms of worship—rites, +doctrines, disciplines: we find in Catholicism similar +phenomena; but we do <em>not</em> find in any of the other +groups, into which men’s attempts at satisfying this +religious sense may fall, that particular mark in +which Catholicism is quite different from all the +rest.</p> + +<p>Let us turn to the historical evidence on the +matter and see how true this is, prefacing that +examination by the reiterated remark that such +unique quality does not of itself and unsupported +by other considerations determine the mind to accept +the authority of the Faith, but remarking that it +does provide a presumption stronger than our +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span>modern world, even its small educated part, is +generally aware of.</p> + +<p>In the first place, is it true that there are a mass +of religions bearing for their chief characteristic that +which is the chief characteristic of the Catholic +Church—a secure, unfailing and constant affirmation +of Infallible Authority?</p> + +<p>No; it is not true. There have been many +restricted, some (very few) widespread religious +systems; to-day there are two in especial—the +Buddhist, the Mohammedan, occur at once to mind; +but not one of them makes this particular Catholic +affirmation. Mohammedan society, not a new religion +but essentially an offshoot and degradation +of the Christian, taking the Catholic doctrine and +simplifying it to its last rudiments (with the exception +of all in it that demands faith in mystery), is +passionate for a certain way of life and intolerant +of others. It creates a very marked and special culture +which no doubt could claim in its own way to +be historically unique, just as the culture of the +Chinese is historically unique. But Islam does not +come forward with the statement, “I am a society +of divine foundation possessed of the power to +reply to question after question upon the only +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span>things that really matter, to which questions man +has never yet of himself attained an answer.” It +says indeed, “This is the way to live; and in this +way of living we are content. A disturbance of it +is odious to us, and we desire as much as we can to +turn all others into our own image—not only the +religious, but the social habits of men offend us +where very different from our own.” But it does +not and cannot of its nature say, “Here alone +through this defined organisation is the voice of +God perpetually speaking, settling controversies, +defining and re-defining in ever-expanding area of +thought whatever truths may be challenged.” It +is alive, but it is not alive with a life of development; +and so far from presenting any organisation +through which its doctrine can be developed as well +as affirmed, it is specifically repugnant to such +organisations. In a phrase, Mohammedanism is +essentially anti-clerical.</p> + +<p>If it be true of Mohammedanism (the chief historically +active opponent of the Faith) that it has +not the peculiar marks which make the Catholic +Church different from any other society in the +world, that it has not some major quality by which +all religions are distinct and which is also the major +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span>quality of the Catholic Church, that statement is +still more true of Buddhism.</p> + +<p>Buddhism never pretended to make, and does not +make to-day, an affirmation to be accepted corporately +by the universal world. It presents a certain +philosophy—which I cannot but call the philosophy +of despair, and which is quite certainly a +philosophy of negation. It presents this gloom for +acceptation by the individual mind. But it claims +no corporate rule; it affirms no divine authority: it +enjoys no functional power of excretion nor any +of assimilation. You cannot say of Buddhism, +“Here is orthodoxy and the living tradition searching +out heresy and denouncing it, maintaining its +life triumphantly by insistence upon a personality +of its own and by a corresponding power of attack +against whatever would diminish or threaten that +life.”</p> + +<p>If we turn from the great systems to the local +worships we find another character, wholly separate +from that apparent in Catholicism: that they do +not pretend to certitude; they pretend to no more +than the satisfaction of emotion and to a corporation +tradition. They have their myths, but will +readily accept them as myths or compare them unoffended +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span>with the myths of others. They have +their sanctities: but their sanctities make no pretence +at all to be universal. There was one, and only +one, historical phenomenon, which in this point did +compare with the Faith—the phenomenon of the +Jewish religion; and that is precisely why we Catholics +call the Jewish religion the forerunner of our +own and the preparation of the world for its Incarnate +God.</p> + +<p>But is it not true that there are countless ceremonies +and also major doctrines, comparable to and +some even nearly identical with those of the Faith?</p> + +<p>It is; and to that we answer that if there is to be +such a thing as the Faith on earth, it could not but +be so. If men must worship, they will worship in +places. If men feel the pull of a religious emotion, +at once the sacramental idea must enter in. There +cannot but be a connection between the physical life +of man and any religious system whatsoever, true +or false, with which he is inmixed. And so surely +as the ministers of the true religion will breathe and +eat and walk upon their feet, each as much as the +ministers of the false, so surely you will find in a +true religion, if true religion there be, habits, practices, +doctrines, which (not all combined, but here +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span>one, there another) men have groped for or arrived +at in systems which attempted or adumbrated the +truth, but did not even claim to be the full truth.</p> + +<p>It is not an historical argument against the +divinity of this one thing that it has the qualities +which human things must have. Upon the contrary, +it is an argument in favour of its claim.</p> + +<p>That the unique object here displayed, the Catholic +Church, is divine cannot on this account be +affirmed; but it can be affirmed that if such a unique +object exist, then it will have these characters +attaching to it.</p> + +<p>A man making a survey of what little is known +of the old religious experiments and perversions of +mankind, and being asked, as a pure hypothesis, +“Suppose a divine society, corporate, distinct, +highly organised, and therefore of highly differentiated +function, were to arise on earth to bear witness +to the Living God: suppose such a thing for +the sake of argument only, what, think you, would +such a body present by way of appearance, action +and thought?” could not but answer that it would +have of necessity present within it not only vital +truths, but also practices discoverable wherever man +had groped at or half remembered a revelation.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span></p> + +<p>This man, with no knowledge of such a society, +but considering what his fellow beings were, what +the human mind is, what questions it poses, what +answers it demands, would reply: “In that society +you would discover the worship of a Creator, the +affirmation that he had revealed himself; a mysterious +link between the divine and the human, comparable +to the link between the unthinking matter +of our bodies and the living essence within. It +would have sacrifice and veneration combined. It +would sanctify objects, places, persons and rites; it +would have central institutions, and in proportion +to its vitality a multitude of lesser activities; it +would have symbols which it would distinguish +from realities and forms of reality which it would +attach to symbols; for man without a soul is a +corpse, and man without a body is a wraith. This +supposed society which you bid men imagine would +certainly present in their highest form such elements +as History has also discovered, disjointedly appearing, +often perverted, often degraded, in the various +(and ineffective) spiritual experiments or lapses of +mankind.”</p> + +<p>Then, one might say to such a man, such a general +scholar and observer of the unique animal, man, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span>at prayer, “Should there conceivably be such a home +upon the earth, how otherwise would you know +it?” He could but answer, “Its nature would be +such that it would satisfy to the full the demands +of men; it would be unique so as to correspond to +man himself who is unique on earth, and it would +grant him fulness and repose.”</p> + +<p>Such and such alone is the Catholic Church. If +it be not what it claims to be, then all is void.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter footnotes"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES"> + Footnotes + </h2> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1_1" href="#FNanchor_1_1" class="label">[1]</a> The Anglican authority and scholar, <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Lightfoot.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2_2" href="#FNanchor_2_2" class="label">[2]</a> For instance, he says there cannot have been a dragon under +the Capitol because dragons are only found in Africa!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3_3" href="#FNanchor_3_3" class="label">[3]</a> For instance, the absurdity about the tides, and the argument +from the phases of Venus.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4_4" href="#FNanchor_4_4" class="label">[4]</a> “Educated” Europe meant a far larger body in Catholic times +than it does now. Universities were then popular institutions and +their attendance was from every class.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5_5" href="#FNanchor_5_5" class="label">[5]</a> Taking the date of Pentecost as <abbr class="nowrap spell">A. D.</abbr> 29.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6_6" href="#FNanchor_6_6" class="label">[6]</a> Thus, a man who says, “While rejecting all dogmas and creed +I revere the vaguer part of the traditional moral teaching of Jesus” +is essentially a Protestant, not a sceptic, or Pagan: for such do not +revere any part of our morals. Protestant also, not Pagan, is the +man who confines himself to “the authentic teaching of Jesus” +freed from all later stories of the marvellous and all the sophistries +of Theology, which “authentic teaching” he picks out of the heap +by his own infallibility. For the true sceptic or Pagan has no more +use for the “authentic” fragments than for all the rest. He is +equally indifferent to the whole.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7_7" href="#FNanchor_7_7" class="label">[7]</a> Heresy = <span lang="grc">Αιρεσις</span>—“Picking and choosing.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8_8" href="#FNanchor_8_8" class="label">[8]</a> Thus we say of a man of twenty-five that he “changes” into +the man of forty. We also say of a man gone mad that he has +“changed.” But the word “change” has two very different meanings +in the two cases. In the one case it is change within the framework, +of unity, of one character and personality. In the other it +is the change <em>against</em> that unity, a rupture of it.</p></div> +</div> + +<div class="transnote"> +<h2 class="nobreak">Transcriber’s Note</h2> + +<p> +Some inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have been +retained. +</p> + +<ul> +<li><abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 37: changed “phenomenom” to “phenomenon” (<a href="#TN1">That such a phenomenon</a>)</li> + +<li><abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 48: deleted duplicate word “the” (<a href="#TN2">condemned by authority of the Catholic Church</a>)</li> + +<li><abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 71: changed “eraliest” to “earliest” (<a href="#TN3">the earliest origins of the Church</a>)</li> + +<li><abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 83: changed “men” to “man” (<a href="#TN6">first the teacher is a revered man</a>)</li> + +<li><abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 96: changed “cay” to “may” (<a href="#TN4">what we may say with regard to</a>)</li> + +<li><abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 96: changed “here” to “there” (<a href="#TN5">neither here nor there</a>)</li> +</ul> + +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78085 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/78085-h/images/cover.jpg b/78085-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a9cc96 --- /dev/null +++ b/78085-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/78085-h/images/left-brace.png b/78085-h/images/left-brace.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..38d0742 --- /dev/null +++ b/78085-h/images/left-brace.png diff --git a/78085-h/images/right-brace.png b/78085-h/images/right-brace.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..31faac4 --- /dev/null +++ b/78085-h/images/right-brace.png diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..359dfca --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #78085 +(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78085) |
