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?