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.

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.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PERMANENCE OF DOGMATIC RELIGION.

In the course of our inquiry, one fact has been made strikingly manifest, namely, the persistence of religious ideas. We found that Christianity at its beginning was only the result of a tendency long latent in Judaism, that its doctrines were wholly Jewish while its adherents were chiefly Jews, and that afterwards, when Pagans in large numbers entered the Church, they carried with them and made Christian the principles of their Pagan religions. Similarly we saw that no new religion was created by the Reformation, that it was merely an instance of reversion, of the falling back of part of Christianity to an older type. In fact, from our study of this subject, we might conclude that religious ideas are practically indestructible, or, at least, that they can only be modified by gradual processes working during long periods of time.

This conclusion would be unquestionably correct, and it especially needs to be insisted on at the present moment. A conviction is general among enlightened men that we are on the threshold of a great religious revolution, which is to be effected by the speedy destruction of Christianity and the consequent abolition of supernatural religion. There seems to be some reason for this belief. Within the last half-century Christianity has declined considerably. Thought and culture have broken loose from it. Fifty years ago the vast majority of the men of letters and science of Europe professed some form of it; now only a small minority do so, and even this minority is steadily growing smaller. We might predict with almost absolute certainty that fifty years hence hardly a single believer in dogmatic Christianity will be found among the leading men of European literature and science. Christianity is dying at the top.

There is a certain resemblance between this state of things and the condition of the Roman world at the time Christianity was beginning to conquer it. Pagan religions then were dying at the top. Philosophers despised them and wits laughed at them; the thought of the age was as completely agnostic as the thought of our own day is tending to become. A thinker, studying the phenomena of the period, might then have reasonably concluded that supernatural religion was destined speedily to perish, that, as men of learning had abandoned it, after a short time their views would spread downwards, and be adopted by all classes of the people. How exquisitely this conclusion would have been exposed by the irony of history! Ten centuries later the religious ideas then current among the populace were common to every class, and the descendants and representatives of the philosophers who rejected super-naturalism were employing their philosophical powers in determining exactly the nature of angels. Perhaps the future is preparing a similar exposure for the philosophers of our own day, who are confident that supernatural religion will soon be a curiosity of the past. A few centuries hence, if esoteric Buddhism shall take the place of Christianity, perhaps philosophy will be engaged in explaining the meaning of “karma,” and science will be occupied in ascertaining the exact nature of an astral body.

Supernaturalism has just as much vitality now as it had a century after Christ. Even if within the next few hundred years Christianity were to become wholly extinct, the ideas underlying it would simply be transferred to some other form of dogmatic religion. The decline of Christianity now, like the decline of the Paganism of the Roman empire, so far as it is real, is the prelude to the formation of new religions. If the support to which the religious ideas of a generation have attached themselves is overthrown, they soon find another system to sustain them. The fall of an old religion is the signal for the rise of a new.

Signs of this transfer of religious allegiance are distinctly visible at present. There is the same mixture of credulity and scepticism now that there was in the first century of the Christian era. We, too, have a philosophical class intensely sceptical, but we also have a class of people who are eager votaries of new religions and excessively credulous. The credulity of the many is the consequence of the scepticism of the few, and is the mark of religious change. It now characterizes those whose faith in Christianity is shaken, but in whom religious ideas are as strong as ever.

The religious ideas now embodied in Christianity and stamped on the general mass of mankind come under the head of dogmatic supernaturalism; they are most of them concerned with God, personal immortality, heaven, and hell. This dogmatic supernaturalism began with the earliest illusions which created religion thousands of years ago. Since then, with every step of his upward progress, man has been more and more the slave of religious dogma. The higher religions of historical times have multiplied assertions about unknown phenomena; Christianity, the highest of religions, has done so most of all. Having inherited, then, this vast inheritance of belief in supernatural dogma, which began to accumulate in the remotest ages, and has since been enlarged and made sure by the great religion which for fifteen hundred years has been identified with the main civilization of the world, how can men of our own day lightly shake off supernaturalism! A few here and there, as variations from the general type necessarily limited in number, may manage to put it aside after a severe contest with the irrational instincts which they have inherited. But so far as the mass of mankind are concerned, ages must elapse before the work of ages can be undone.

Just as in the first century the disbelief of philosophers had discredited the Pagan religions, so now the disbelief of men of thought is discrediting Christianity. And as a certain class of Pagans then turned from the discredited religions to find another basis for their religious ideas, so now a certain class of people are seeking a basis for their religious ideas apparently surer than discredited Christianity. There is a difference of degree between the two periods; Christianity is not yet as much discredited as the Pagan religions were when it attacked them. We have not yet reached the condition of the time when the mysteries were the last props of Paganism, and the importation of foreign religions was one of the recognized industries of Rome. But the seeds of the development of such phenomena are plainly visible. Spiritualism and the Psychical Research Society are the rudiments of Christian mysteries, and certainly attempts on a small scale are being made to import religions into London from Syria and India.

Here in England between the large class of those who still believe in Christianity and the small class of those who put the supernatural wholly aside lies the class, continually increasing in numbers, of those who have lost faith in Christianity, but have not lost faith in the ideas which form the essence of it. Books like “Esoteric Buddhism” and Mr. Laurance Oliphant’s “Sympneumata” are written for and by members of this class. The absurd weakness of such attempts to give the supernatural a natural basis does not in the least detract from their popular power.

Life is full of inevitable illusions, and only a few are in a position to detect their illusive character. In regard to these illusions, the belief of the great majority of mankind must be determined by authority; they can only choose between alternative authorities. And their choice cannot rest on strong grounds of personal conviction. The class of people just mentioned, for instance, who have lost faith in Christianity, for the most part could give but poor reasons for their refusal to accept its dogmas. They simply feel that it is discredited, and they do not like to be on the losing side. Any system which embodies their religious ideas, and does not appear to be discredited, they will believe in readily, even though it has not a particle of evidence to support it.

Moreover, when men in general have to choose between authorities whose real weight they are not in a position to determine, their wishes naturally affect their choice. If one alternative is pleasanter than the other, they are sure to decide in its favour. Take, for instance, the belief in personal immortality. This rests on an illusion which can be seen through only by the exercise of a certain amount of philosophical imagination, namely, the impossibility of conceiving its own extinction inherent in the mind’s consciousness of life. As every one wishes to be immortal, that is, shrinks from the return to his pre-natal non-existence; and as nearly every one, besides, has lost some loved relative or friend whose death he cannot bear to think of as a final effacement, most people are quite ready to accept this illusion as valid evidence of the truth of the belief. Thus a religious system which asserts the immortality of the soul so far has mankind on its side. And the long influence of Christianity, which from the beginning has been built on the doctrine of personal immortality, has of course co-operated with its primary attractiveness in stamping it deeply on the nature of men of our times. Life seems unbearable to many people unless it is assumed to be true. It is a prominent feature of all our new religious growths. The Psychical Research Society seeks to confirm it by the evidence of ghost-stories. Many generations will have to pass away before mankind in general can renounce it, and till then, if only to supply it with an apparent basis, dogmatic religion must survive.

If the decline of Christianity continues with the rapidity of the last half-century, a perilous crisis lies before the population of the civilized world. Old religious ideas seeking a new basis will produce new upheavals of religious imagination, and a period of intense superstition will ensue. Whatever might result from such a period, in itself it could be nothing but evil, a time of darkness and disquiet, of relaxed morality and charlatan prophets. Fortunately the fall of Christianity is not likely to be so rapid in the future; the great mass of mankind may cling to it long after it has parted from the world’s intellectual life.

The religion of the future certainly will not be the curious system of Comte. Positivism is only a philosophy masquerading in the garb of a religion. Its fundamental principle is hopelessly at variance with the craving for supernatural dogma which has possession of ordinary men. Equally, of course, a refined Christianity, with the juice of dogma squeezed out, cannot become the religion of mankind. Religious ideas need a dogmatic system, and in some form or other their need is sure to be supplied.

Indeed, it is probable that dogmatic religion will always be a phenomenon of human life. Man framed it in the beginning, and man is likely to preserve it to the end. The conditions of existence secure it an assured tenure. The actual business of living must occupy all the thoughts of the vast majority of men. In regard to the matters which lie beyond this they can only walk by faith, and the illusions of life furnish ample material for faith to work on. A few may have the leisure to examine phenomena themselves, and thus may attain freedom from the influence of illusion, and may see things as they really are. But they can never be more than an infinitesimal minority. And so, from generation to generation, with the shadows of their hopes and fears, their loves and hates, men will people the impenetrable darkness which closes around the mystery of life.

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