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.