As regards simplicity of thought and worship, there is clearly the same opposition between Protestantism and Catholicism that there was between Judaism and Paganism. Catholicism is remarkable more than Protestantism for complexity of doctrine and sensuousness in worship. We will now consider how far this opposition shows itself in their treatment of the great dogmas which nominally are common to them both.
The Atonement being the chief Jewish dogma of Christianity, we should expect it to be more prominent in Protestantism than in Catholicism. And this is strictly the case. Catholicism lays no stress on the doctrine. In a very able work by Mr. S. Baring-Gould, which presents the religion of Catholicism in its truest form, the Atonement is made simply symbolical, and the death of Christ is regarded as hardly necessary to his work.[108] Protestantism, on the other hand, makes the Atonement its primary dogma. “The blood of Jesus,” is its central cry. It links the dogma with its distinctive doctrine; justification by faith in the reconciling death of Christ is the essence of its theology, and sums up its multitudinous preaching.
We also find the great Pagan dogma of Christianity, the Incarnation, more prominent in Catholicism than in Protestantism. That God became man is the central assertion of Catholicism, on which it bases its higher estimation of human dignity. This can plainly be seen in the work last referred to, where the Incarnation is regarded as the condition of theistic religion.[109] But it is still more evident in the tendency of Catholic theology to exalt the divinity at the expense of the humanity of Christ, for manifestly the doctrine of the Incarnation is expanded and made more important in proportion as the difference between it and the original Jewish belief in the simple humanity of Christ is increased. The Athanasian Creed is thoroughly Catholic, and its definition of the nature of Christ involves the destruction of his human personality. Catholic theologians have boldly adopted this conclusion, and assert that his personality is wholly divine.[110] Instinctively the Catholic always thinks of Christ as God.
Protestantism, on the contrary, never dwells on the Incarnation. The extreme Evangelical sects, in which its principles are fully developed, are perpetually drifting towards Unitarianism. But, as in the case of Catholicism, its interpretation of the doctrine best reveals its tendencies. It exalts the humanity at the expense of the divinity of Christ. It holds him up as an example in a manner which implies his human personality. Instinctively the Protestant always thinks of Christ as man.
In their treatment of the Eucharist the respective characteristics of Catholicism and Protestantism are also evident. We have already seen the Paganism of the Catholic doctrine of the real presence. Equally the two Protestant doctrines show the influence of Judaism on Christianity. The first, the Evangelical doctrine, which allows the Eucharist no sacramental value, and makes it simply a commemoration of the sacrament which accompanied the sacrifice of Christ’s death, was probably the belief of the Jewish Church at its very beginning; the second, and more general one, which asserts the real presence, but only in a spiritual sense through the faith of the communicant, we know to have been the belief of the later Jewish Church in the time of St. Paul. If it were not for the pressure of Catholicism, it is likely that the second would be the doctrine of all forms of Protestantism. But when Catholics have so exaggerated the real presence, Protestants, by a natural reaction, are tempted to deny it altogether.
Thus the two systems of religion which Christianity seemed to unite have plainly parted again. The Judaism in which it was born, and the Paganism in which it reached its maturity, stand once more side by side. And not merely does Christianity reveal so manifestly that great opposing forces met in its history, but in reality every important feature of the long course of development which has been the subject of our survey, is recorded as clearly in its present structure as the chief conditions of the past evolution which has produced it are recorded in the structure of an animal organism.