# Characteristics of the Present Age/Lecture 13

The one True Religion, or Christianity, must and ought to become the creative and governing principle of a new State:—this we announced at the close of our last Lecture. Such was the actual course of events, and thereby arose an entirely New Era.
Before commencing the inquiry for which we have thus opened the way, and upon which we are now to enter, we must first of all direct your attention to one remark of the highest importance in any historical survey; namely, that it is only by a very slow and tardy course that the great events of History develop themselves and become visible in their results. The historical inquirer who, with regard to such an event, does not know how to anticipate experience, and to supply what is wanting in foresight by means of the laws of human development, possesses only fragments torn from their connexion which he can never understand, being without a knowledge of the organic whole to which they belong. This is the case with the whole History of Modern Times, the true principle of which is the manifestation of Christianity. That the Old Time has passed away, and that we stand above its grave amid an intricate and wonderful concourse of new elements, any one may observe by merely opening his eyes;—but what ​this concourse of elements may signify, and to what it may tend, cannot be understood by mere external observation, but only by deeper insight. According to our opinion, which we have already frankly declared in another place, Christianity has never yet attained a general and public existence in its purity and truth; although it has, at all times, attained a true life here and there in individual minds. But this is not inconsistent with the assertion which we also make, that it has had an active and efficient life in History, in preparing the way for itself and in bringing about the conditions necessary to its public existence. He who possesses a mere historical knowledge of this preliminary activity, but is ignorant of its real nature and tendency, necessarily confounds the accidental with the essential and the means with the end; and he can never arrive at a true comprehension even of this preliminary activity itself. The part which Christianity has to play in the History of the World,—for of this only have we now to speak,—is not yet concluded; and whoever cannot enter into the meaning of the whole vast Drama should not presume to pass any judgment upon it. In like manner, to avail ourselves of a kindred example, the part which has been assigned to the Reformation in human History, of which we have already had occasion to speak in a very limited connexion, is by no means concluded.
After this preliminary remark, the application of which will soon become apparent, let us now proceed to our task. Christianity itself must and ought to become the governing or creative principle of the State as exemplified in a New Era. We must, in the first place, answer this question,—In what way can Christianity accomplish this, and on what ground does it rest its claim to do so? I reply,—Its operation may be regarded in a double aspect:—it is partly absolute, as that of true and genuine Christianity; and partly contingent, determined by the position of things ​amid which it strives at first to raise itself to purity and perfectness. In the first place, as respects the former view of the activity of True Religion;—this Religion is precisely similar to the Love of Goodness which we have described at the close of a former lecture; which Goodness appears to the religious sense as the immediate work of God within us; while we, in the accomplishment of this work, are regarded as the instruments of God. We formerly remarked that this Love of Goodness sets itself entirely free even from the Perfect State, and raises itself completely above all compulsive Authority; and for the same reasons this may also be said of the True Religion. That which the God-devoted man may not do on any consideration, is indeed also outwardly forbidden in the Perfect State; but he has already cast it from him in obedience to the Will of God without regard to any outward prohibition. That which alone this God-devoted man loves and desires to do, is indeed outwardly commanded in this Perfect State; but he has already done it in obedience to the Will of God. If, then, this religious frame of mind is to exist in the State and yet never to come into collision with it, it is absolutely necessary that the State should at all times keep pace with the development of the religious sense among its Citizens, so that it shall never command anything which True Religion forbids, or forbid anything which she enjoins. In such a state of things, the well-known principle, that we must obey God rather than man, could never come into application; for in that case man would only command what God also commanded, and there would remain to the willing servant only the choice whether he would pay his obedience to the command as that of human power, or as the Will of God which he loves before all things else. From this perfect Freedom and superiority which Religion possesses over the State arises the duty of both to keep themselves absolutely separate, and to cast off all ​immediate dependence on each other. Religion must never lay claim to the compulsive power by which the State enforces its purposes, for Religion, like the Love of Goodness, exists inwardly and invisibly in the heart, and never appears in outward actions, which, although in accordance with the Law, may yet have proceeded from other motives altogether;—while the State can order only the visible actions of men. Religion is Love, while force is the instrument of the State; and nothing can be more perverse than the desire to enforce Love by outward constraint. On the other hand, the State must never attempt to use Religion for the furtherance of its purposes; for in so doing, it would place reliance upon an element which is not within its power, and which on that account might not fulfil its expectations; in which case it would have calculated falsely and thus have failed in its purpose;—it must be able of itself to enforce what it commands, and must command nothing but what it is able to enforce. This is the negative influence of Religion on the State, or rather the negative reciprocal influence of both on each other:—that by the existence of the first, the State is confined within its own proper limits, and both are strictly separated from each other.
In the view of True Religion, and in particular of Christianity, Humanity is the one, visible, efficient, living, and independent existence of God; or, if the expression be not misunderstood, the one manifestation and effluence of that Existence;—a beam from the Eternal Light, which divides itself, not in reality but only to mere earthly vision, into many individual rays. Therefore all which truly belongs to this Humanity is, according to this doctrine, essentially one and identical throughout; and is in all its elements destined in the same way lovingly to return to its Original and therein to be blessed. This vocation, thus set before man by Religion, must not be disturbed or hindered by the State; which must therefore ​allow to all men, and—as the administrator of the purposes of the Human Race—must provide for all men, equal access to the existing sources of the Culture by which they may be prepared for this vocation. This is only possible by the establishment of an Absolute Equality of all men in Personal as well as Civil Freedom; in respect of Rights as well as Right. Thus the same purpose which belongs to the State as such, it receives anew from the hands of Religion; and this is the positive influence of Religion on the State,—not that it gives a new purpose to the State, which would be inconsistent with the separation from each other which we have already required, but that it summons up deeper sympathies in aid of the purpose which already belongs to the State, and impels it more powerfully towards the attainment of that purpose. Both of these developments, indeed,—that of the true Religious sense, as well as that of Political order,—only proceed by slow and gradual movements, and to a certain extent keep pace with each other; but there is nothing to prevent the former, at least in Individuals, from preceding and partly guiding the latter.
Such is the case with this relation when the State is considered only in itself and in relation to its own Citizens. But should it happen that several independent and sovereign States were to arise within the circle of the one True Religion; or, what is the same thing, that the one State of Culture and of Christianity were broken up into a Christian Republic of Nations, in which individual States should be, not indeed constrained, but incessantly observed and judged by the others;—then there would be found laid down in the Christian Doctrine a universally applicable Canon for the determination of what is praiseworthy, what tolerable, and what censurable, in the intercourse of one State with another, as well as in the conduct of private Citizens;—and the otherwise absolute Monarch, even after he had silenced his own subjects, would still, if any sense ​of honour dwelt within him, have to stand in dread of the testimony and judgment of neighbouring States, and of posterity whose opinion will be guided by that judgment; or, should he even have cast aside this feeling, he would still have to fear the consequences of the loss of general confidence. Thus there would arise by means of this Religion a Public Opinion throughout the whole realm of Culture, and in it, a Sovereignty of no mean importance over Sovereigns, which would leave them at full liberty to do good, while it would often effectually restrain the desire of wrong-doing.
Such is the influence of Christianity on the State, when this Religion and its influence are considered absolutely. Another influence is that which this Religion may exercise contingently, determined by the conditions of the time amid which it, as yet, only strives to attain an independent existence and fitting sphere of action. This contingent influence, which it did actually exercise and in part does exercise even to the present day, was determined by the condition of the men upon whom it was first directed. At that time the superstitious dread of the Godhead as a hostile being, as well as the feeling of personal sinfulness, weighed more heavily and universally than at any other upon the inhabitants of civilized countries; and there existed a secret looking towards the East, and particularly towards Judea, whence some means of atonement and expiation were expected to arise. Many circumstances in History prove this:—for example, the attachment to Oriental Mysteries which was so generally diffused even in Rome itself; and the immense treasures which found their way from all parts of Asia, and even from Europe, to the temple at Jerusalem. Christianity, as we have shown in the proper place, is no method of atonement and expiation: Man can never disunite himself from the Godhead;—and in so far as he fancies himself so disunited he is a Nonentity, which on ​that very account cannot sin, but on whose forehead the imaginary brand of Sin is placed that he may thereby be directed to the True God. In the hands of such Ages, however, Christianity was necessarily changed into a means of atonement and expiation, and assumed the form of a New Covenant with God; because these Ages had no need of a Religion, and indeed no capacity for receiving one, except in this shape. And thus that Christian System which, when I formerly spoke of this subject, I called a degenerate form of Christianity, and the authorship of which I ascribed to the Apostle Paul, was also a necessary product of the whole spirit of that Age as directed upon Christianity; and that this man and no other should have first given expression to that spirit was quite accidental; for had he not done so every one who had not risen superior to his Age by the intimate transfusion of his spirit in True Christianity would have done the same; as every one does, even to the present day, who has filled his mind with these pictures, and who dreams of such a mediation between God and men as necessary, and cannot even conceive of the contrary.
After Christianity had assumed this form, and particularly after the external act of initiation—Baptism—had become a mysterious purification from Sin, whereby the disciple was immediately released from the eternal punishment consequent thereon, and without farther effort obtained access to heaven; it could not but follow that the administrators of this rite should acquire the highest reputation among men; that the guardianship of this purity, which they had conferred by means of the sacrament, should likewise devolve upon them; and that thus no human occupation should be exempt from a jurisdiction, criticism, and guidance exercised by them under this pretence. When this superstition at last laid hold of the Roman Emperors themselves and the ​highest officers of their State, these too necessarily fell under the general discipline of the Ecclesiastics, who were consequently incited to exercise their office towards these persons with a special and notorious zeal, which necessarily produced the most pernicious consequences on the authority and freedom of the Government. These Ecclesiastics themselves were by their mental tendencies shut out from any sound political views; and had scarcely any other conception of the things of this world than as means for the propagation of their faith, and the maintenance of what they called its purity;—they were therefore incapable either of wisely guiding the Rulers whom they had deprived of freedom, or of governing in their room; and thus nothing else could ensue but the total enervation and final destruction of the Kingdoms in which they held sway.
Should there ever again arise a State to which this pernicious influence might prove innocuous, and which should be able to repel its insidious advances; then must such a State be itself established upon Religion, in order thereby to counteract an influence which was able only to destroy whatever existed without its aid. In consequence of this necessity of returning to the original and native principles of the State, Religion was also compelled to fall back upon her own principles and to reform herself within her own domain. She was obliged, in the first place, to succeed in converting the elements of which the new State was composed, in order that both Citizens and Rulers might be her own spiritual creation. In this business of conversion she had not, as formerly, to do with superstitious, terrified men, who, full of hereditary dread of the Gods, were ready upon any terms to throw themselves into her bosom; for similar causes would again have produced similar effects: but she had to do with those who in their open character and simple relations,—for it is only the complexity of relations produced by partial Culture ​which gives birth to great crimes, the horror of inward sinfulness and dread of the Gods;—who, I say, in their open character and simple relations, had not hitherto much concerned themselves about the Divinity, and in particular, were very far from fearing Him. The conversion of such men gave to the Church, in her old character of an expiator of Sin and a propitiator of God, a wholly new task;—this namely, artificially to excite among this second class that superstitious fear of God, and need of an atonement, which she had found already existing among her first converts. Unquestionably this latter was a much more difficult business, and,—with the exception of single individuals who may have felt peculiarly conscious of sin, and certain epochs which may have been particularly favourable to the dominion of the Ecclesiastical Power,—it has never been, in my opinion, so perfectly and so universally accomplished among the nations of modern Europe as it was in the Roman Empire; for proof of which the student may examine in particular the history of the Byzantine Monarchy, in which the Ecclesiastical Power played its part throughout a long series of years. In Modern Europe the religious superstition at all times enjoyed the privilege of unwearied preaching, and was freely admitted to the community as a foreign ingredient; but it never struck its root so deeply in the heart, and whenever a more powerful interest arose it was shaken off. The whole course of Modern History proves this; and particularly the Age since the Reformation, in which the national character of Modern Europe has developed itself more freely. The Church has indeed almost ceased to preach this doctrine; and even where it still does so it is without fruit for no one lays it to heart.
It was farther necessary that the fundamental elements of the New State should bear the general European National Characteristic,—a keen sense and love of Right ​and Freedom,—in order that they might not return to Asiatic despotism, but willingly admit the principle of Equality of Right for All, which had been previously developed among the Greeks and Romans. They would have to combine with this general characteristic the special feature of a delicate sense of Honour, in order that they might be accessible to the legitimate influence of Christianity upon Public Opinion which we have already pointed out. Precisely such elements as we have described were found among the Germanic Races, as if they had been expressly reserved for this great purpose. I mention only these; for the devastating inroads of other Races had no enduring results; and those kingdoms of other origin, which are incorporated with the Republic of Nations now existing in Europe, have for the most part received Christianity and Culture by means of the Germanic tribes. These Germanic tribes,—who were apparently of similar descent to the Greeks, and must have held intercourse with them at an earlier period as a strict examination of the respective languages might incontestibly prove,—occupied approximately the same stage of Culture in their forests as the Greeks in their Heroic Age. Many a Hercules, Jason, or Theseus, may there have assembled around them bands of willing associates, and achieved wonderful adventures with them, unnoticed by History. Their worship was simple as their manners, and they were seldom disturbed by scruples about their moral worthiness. Independence, freedom, and universal equality, had become natural to them by the usage of centuries. To fix the regards of all men by bold and hazardous enterprises, and after death to live in the songs of after times, was the aim of the more noble among them;—faithfulness even unto death, on the part of the free follower towards his leader, was the glory and honour of others;—and any breach of faith was universally regarded as so ​insupportable a disgrace that even the younger and stronger, when they forfeited the freedom they had staked, voluntarily surrendered themselves to the older and feebler winner, and even to sale into the bonds of slavery. These were the elements out of which Christianity had to build up its new State. If, in addition to this, it happened accidentally that several races of similar descent established new States at the same time, and upon the same foundation of Christianity and the Ancient Empire, these States would even by that common descent be bound more closely to each other than to foreign nations; and the most favourable circumstance which could possibly arise, both for Religion and the State, was when Religion attained a central point in external political power, and that power obtained an independent territorial possession. Not, as formerly, seating herself in authority within the Empire, and incessantly controlling the government;—it was now the business of this Central Power to hold together from without the various States of the One Empire of Christianity, and to become the Arbiter between them;—she was now, by her actual position, rather the Guardian of the rights of nations than, as formerly, the Head of internal government. Since that time it had become of much greater importance to Religion that the Empire of Christianity should be divided, and all the parts of it maintained in equal and independent power, because in these circumstances her aid would be needed;—than that it should again return to the form of One State, which event, had it occurred among these still partially untamed spirits, would likely have brought with it dangerous consequences even to the Spiritual Power itself. So it actually happened;—and, under the protection of this power, individual Christian States were enabled to develop themselves according to their separate character, and with a considerable degree of freedom; and the Christian Republic of Nations, which ​arose and was maintained by means of this Power, was further extended and enlarged, partly by the armed conquest of single States from the dominion of Non-Christianity, partly by peaceful conquest, by means of conversion of new Empires to Christianity, and by the consequent subjugation of these to the Central Spiritual Power.
The fundamental principles of this Christian Empire were, and for the most part are to the present day, the following: First, with respect to the Rights of Nations:—A State, because it is a Christian State, has a right of existence in its actually present condition; it is possessed of a perfectly independent Sovereignty, and no other Christian State, the Spiritual Central Power in its own peculiar office excepted, may demand a voice in the arrangement of its internal affairs. All Christian States stand towards each other in the position of reciprocal recognition and of original peace:—of original peace, I say; that is, there can no war arise with respect to the existence of a State, although war may well arise as to the fortuitous modifications of that existence. By this principle, a war of extermination between Christian States is strictly prohibited. Not so as regards Non-Christian States;—these, according to the same principle, have no recognised existence, and they not only may, but ought to be, expelled from the circle of Christian dominion. The Church gives them no peace; and should such a peace be conceded by Christian powers, this could only happen from necessity, or because the Christian principle is extinguished and other motives have taken its place. Secondly, with respect to Civil Rights:—Before God all men are free and equal;—in every Christian State all men without exception must have the means and opportunity conceded to them of devoting themselves to God, and in this respect at least be assured of Personal Freedom; and from this there readily follows ​complete Personal Freedom, and the principles that no Christian can be a slave and that a Christian soil confers Freedom. On the other hand, according to the same principle, the Non-Christian or Heathen, may legitimately be made a slave.
An outward event, of too much importance to be passed over in silence, served to urge this Christian Republic of Nations into closer union with each other, to compel them to regard themselves as members belonging to one Whole, to pursue common interests, and to commence new undertakings in their common character as a Christian Republic. In Asia which, except that it probably had been the abode of the Normal People, had otherwise done nothing for Humanity save the production of the True Religion, there arose a second and younger branch of this True Religion,—namely, Mohammedanism,—obviously from one and the same source as Christianity, but by no means admitting the entire abrogation of the Ancient Covenant with God; hence accepting from Judaism whatever was applicable to its own condition, and thus bringing along with it the germ of its gradual corruption and final ruin, and rejecting the inexhaustible source of outward perfection which Christianity contains within itself. Zealous in proselytism like Christianity; expert at the sword, by which from the first it had spread itself abroad; vainly arrogating a superiority over Christianity on account of a distinction of little importance in itself, this namely, that it distinctly declared the Unity of God a doctrine which was essentially pre-supposed in Christianity, and that it was not wholly imbued with such gross superstition as the Christianity of the Time; lastly, dogmatically inculcating Despotism, and that mute and unquestioning submission which is peculiar to the East, as its political principles;—this Mohammedanism waged war with Christianity and proved a victorious assailant. Besides extinguishing Christianity altogether in a ​considerable extent of territory, and establishing itself as the dominant Religion, there was yet a circumstance connected with these triumphs which made them peculiarly painful to Christianity,—namely, that among the countries thus lost, there was that Land especially to which Christianity owed its birth, and towards which the romantic piety of the new Christians devoutly turned its regards. To indignation succeeded a burning desire of action; and with a free enthusiasm like what might have animated them in their native forests,—not as Citizens of this State or of that, but only as Christians,—hosts of the Germanic tribes precipitated themselves upon that Land to win it back from Saracen domination. However unsatisfactory may have been the result of these undertakings; whatever evil may have been said of the Crusades by critics who have never been able to forget their own Age, and to transplant themselves into the spirit of other times so as to obtain a complete survey of the whole; they still remain an ever-memorable manifestation of power on the part of a One united Christian World as such, wholly independent of the individuality of the several States into which it was broken up. The knowledge of many important peculiarities of these enemies, as well as observation of the crimes of which they were themselves accused, and accused others in return, was no unimportant fruit of the undertaking.
At a later period Mohammedanism, which had already in the early times of the Christian State penetrated into those countries which seemed to be set apart as the exclusive possession of Christianity, namely into Europe, and had been driven thence in feebleness, now reappeared there on another and more dangerous side, and amid a new nation,—the Turks,—with the undisguised purpose of its gradual conquest and subjugation. Then awoke again, for the last time, at least in discourses and public writings, the idea of Christians ​forming but One State and possessing one common interest; until, at last, the dreaded enemy, involved in the meshes of European policy, grew old in itself and began its course of decay towards internal dissolution.
These are, in my opinion, the external conditions under which the Christian State-system of Modern Europe has begun and continued its development. How the true State-Constitution develops itself in individual States under these outward conditions, hindered or furthered by them; how it has received within itself, and further cultivated, whatever it has found already existing in the world; we shall see in the future lectures;—if we may venture to hope that these inquiries continue to possess an interest for you, and can still attract and hold together the remaining body of our accustomed hearers.