Literature and Dogma: An Essay towards a better Apprehension of the Bible is a work of religious and literary criticism by Matthew Arnold, first published in February 1873.

In time, however, arose the belief that "the mild, inward, self-renouncing, and sacrificed Servant of the Eternal, the new and better Messiah, was yet, before the present generation passed, to come on the clouds of heaven in power and glory."

[5] According to Arnold, there is no call for profound historical or philological study to aid in the treatment of the questions which come up; we have the account of one man, who, it might almost be said, is nearly a contemporary of ours, in comparison with the ancient Israelites; we have often his very words, and, although they will carry a different meaning to every heart, varying with the nature and experience of the individual, they nevertheless were spoken directly to men; they were not designed as subjects for abstruse discussion or dogmatic reasoning.

[5] The two following chapters, "The Early Witnesses" ("Faith in Christ") and "Aber glaube re-invading", discuss the later books of the New Testament, and the appearance and spread of certain of the dogmas of the Church.

[6] He gives instances of the way in which literal criticism has perverted the true meaning of texts, and draws an outline of the main differences between Catholicism and Protestantism.