The first of these quotations was written by Newman in 1845 in his famous Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. The second was written by Marx and Engels three years later in The Communist Manifesto.

Newman’s essay can be seen as the beginning of a genuine sense of history in the world of Catholic Theology. The Communist Manifesto can be seen as having a similar role for the history of ideas. Catholic Theology could never be the same again after Newman’s essay and secular history could never be the same again after the Communist Manifesto.

It is beyond the scope of this paper to explore more than a few of the implications of the Marxist view of history as class struggle for Newman’s view of doctrinal development. I am not aware that anyone has ever given a Marxist analysis of Newman’s famous essay. There are, however, a number of Marxist treatments of the history of the Church and of Christian doctrine—notably by Engels and Karl Kautsky. These treatments are all written from the point of view of a rejection of belief, both in God and in any meaningful degree of historical certainty about the existence of Jesus Christ.

The reasons for Marxist atheism are well known and can be found in the philosophical background of the young Marx. The reasons for the extreme scepticism over New Testament origins can be traced to early nineteenth century biblical criticism and to the work of the bosom friend of the young Marx at Berlin in the 1830s, Bruno Bauer.