The Catholic Church and history

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.