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.