The true and conclusive answer to this objection consists, not in detailed refutation of alleged difficulties, but in a principle of faith; namely, that whensoever any doctrine is contained in the Divine tradition of the Church, all difficulties from human history are excluded, as Tertullian lays down, by prescription. The only source of revealed truth is God, the only channel of His revelation is the Church. No human history can declare what is contained in that revelation. The Church alone can determine its limits, and therefore its contents.
When then the Church, out of the proper fountains of truth, the Word of God, written and unwritten, declares any doctrine to be revealed, no difficulties of human history can prevail against it. I have before said: 'The pretentious historical criticism of these days has prevailed, and will prevail, to undermine the peace and the confidence, and even the faith of some. But the city seated on a hill is still there, high and out of reach. It cannot be hid, and is its own evidence, anterior to its history, and independent of it. Its history is to be learned of itself.' 'It is not therefore by criticism on past history, but by acts of faith in the living voice of the Church at this hour, that we can know the faith.'[1]
On these words of mine, Quirinus makes the following not very profound remark: 'The faith which removes mountains will be equally ready—such is clearly his meaning—to make away with the facts of history. Whether any German Bishop will be found to offer his countrymen these stones to digest,
