During it the moral corruption of Christianity was enormous. The Church laid stress, not on righteous conduct, but on orthodox thinking. Heresy was irremediably damnable, but crimes and sins could be easily compounded for. The immorality of the clergy, due partly to the general corruption of the time, and partly to their legal celibacy, was closely connected with the toleration of sin shown in the action of the Church. Rotten itself, the ecclesiastical power was ever ready, in return for material benefits, to open the gates of heaven to secular sinners. The whole course of medieval Christianity was a progress towards the doctrine of indulgences which immediately provoked the Reformation.
The moral decline of Christianity was the mark of its progress towards Paganism. It receded further from its original basis in Judaism as its dogmas became more complex and its hold on morality more uncertain. The complexity of doctrine encouraged the decline in morality, religious attention being drawn by it from practical conduct to the consideration of nice points of theology. A reaction against this tendency was inevitable. Christianity had shared in the descent of European civilization, and when European civilization began to ascend, Christianity had to ascend along with it. But the reaction, as it was against a corruption which was inextricably linked with the Paganism of the Church, could not fail to oppose itself to Paganism, that is, to recoil back to Judaism. And this is the explanation of the Reformation. It was the revival of Judaism in Christianity. As the revival of Jewish Christianity, it was sure to occur sooner or later; once the thought and knowledge of Europe awakened from their medieval slumber, the revolt against Paganism was bound to begin. The renewal of intellectual life involved the renewal of moral life. The restored conscience of Europe would protest first against the later corruptions of Pagan Christianity; but these were inseparably connected with earlier ones, and so step by step reformers would have to ascend along the line, until at last they would find themselves the champions of Jewish Christianity, contending against the forces of Paganism.
Thus the great schism which the Reformation caused in Christianity was inevitable from the first. Paganism could not be eradicated by the revival of Judaism. The more ignorant and backward races were sure to cling to it in opposition to the progressive spirit which revolted from it. The schism in Christianity was as inevitable as the schism which it occasioned in Judaism, the necessity of which was shown in our second chapter. And just as the expansion of Judaism which Christ made a practical success was in its main features quite independent of the influence of his personal character, so the main features of the Reformation were determined apart from the personal influence of the Reformers.
From the time of the Reformation Jewish and Pagan Christianity stood side by side. Protestantism revived the principles of the early Church; Catholicism retained the principles of Paganism. Within the lifetime of Luther the change was accomplished. He himself, because he assailed one immoral doctrine of the corrupt Roman Church, was forced to travel back along fourteen centuries of religious development.
Of course Protestantism cannot be exactly the same as the religion of the Jewish Church. Just as Pagan Christianity was compelled to retain Jewish dogmas, so Protestantism was compelled to retain Pagan dogmas. It had nothing to rest on except the Canon of Scripture, and part of the New Testament is Pagan in spirit. Accordingly, the dogmas of earlier Paganism, which were developed while it was still mixed with Judaism in the Church, were preserved in Protestantism. It kept, for instance, the great Pagan dogma of the Incarnation. Still, so far as general principle is concerned, Protestantism fairly represents Judaism, and Catholicism Paganism in Christianity. This is evident if they are fully compared with each other.
The Pagan character of Catholicism has already been shown. As Catholicism—and this term covers more than the Roman Church—has retained all the doctrines which we have examined as representative of Paganism in Christianity, this is obvious. Similarly the non-Pagan character of Protestantism is clear from its rejection of all the later of these doctrines, from the worship of saints to the immaculate conception. Its Jewish character must be shown by a reference to the principles of our comparison of Judaism and Paganism.
The chief distinctive doctrine of Protestantism is justification by faith alone. That in this it resembles Jewish Christianity, a glance at St. Paul’s epistles is sufficient to show. It is also plain that this doctrine is closely connected with the great Jewish dogma of the Atonement. According to it, sins are washed away by the blood of Christ, the victim offered to God. But the benefits of the sacrifice are obtained solely by faith; the merits of the Christian cannot enhance its value. Still more closely, however, is the doctrine connected with the feature distinctive of Protestantism as of Judaism, its loftier conception of God. This, as was pointed out in our last chapter, is the peculiarity of monotheism, and it shows the monotheistic character of Protestantism. Catholicism, having inherited polytheistic ideas from Paganism, naturally recognizes the value of man’s good works. In the saints whom he worships the Catholic sees beings who, though they were once fallible like himself, have yet obtained heavenly authority; and, as he is thus conscious of no important difference between his divinities and himself, he is not disposed to underestimate the worth of his virtue.
As a necessary consequence of its distinctive doctrine, Protestantism is characterized by humility. It depresses human excellence and heightens the sense of sin. In this it develops what were, as we saw before, the essential tendencies of Judaism. And, curiously enough, the phenomenon which appeared in Judaism—theological humility more than counterbalanced by exclusive pride—appears also in the extreme forms of Protestantism. The religion of the Puritans was ultra-Protestant in its insistence on the utter sinfulness of human nature and the need of faith; and yet no class of men were ever prouder than they. Like the Jews, they felt their pride as the people, the elect of God, who were honoured by him above the rest of mankind. The same phenomenon can be observed at the present day among the extreme Evangelical sects which keep the far frontier of Protestantism. In them we also find theoretically religious humility, and practically the most intense religious pride. And, indeed, both in these sects and in Puritanism we see Protestantism fully developed in its likeness to its parent Judaism, with the harshness and exclusiveness of Judaism thinly veiled under a nominal Christianity.
Again, Protestantism resembles Judaism in its higher morality. Protestants as a whole are certainly more moral than Catholics as a whole. At first sight this seems remarkable, as morality is not encouraged by the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone. But, as a matter of fact, the priestly absolution of Catholicism is a much more immoral doctrine. In practice, as might be expected, the belief in justification by faith alone does less mischief than the belief that sins can be got rid of by a visit to the nearest church. Of course, in addition to this, the higher theology of Protestantism favours morality, just as the higher theology of Judaism did. So far as it is purer and more rational than Catholicism, it naturally is more moral, and allies itself less easily with ignorance and animalism.
Protestantism, too, is like Judaism in having for its basis a written revelation. The Bible is to Protestants what the law and the prophets were to Jews. This feature of Protestantism is obviously connected with its depreciation of human excellence. It makes men simply vessels for the reception of a finished system of religious truth. Catholicism, on the other hand, by its assertion of a continuously inspired Church, which in every generation may develop new dogmas, plainly assigns a higher position in religion to man.