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.