accepted, not enforced. Men have their roots in eternity; but, on earth, the surest tie between them is their inborn love of their fellow-men. Herein lies the significance of the historical process of emancipation from the Church, of the separation of Church from State, and of the innumerable efforts to solve the problems of religion and of religious organization.
In setting up democracy against theocracy I do not forget that democracy has evolved and is still evolving, or that there are various degrees of democracy and of democratic outlook. A democracy may be more or less republican, more or less de-ecclesiasticized. It may take the form of constitutional monarchy, and even then there may be differences such as existed between the English system and that of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. What was sound in the old relationship between Church and State will remain in a new and higher form under a democratic system; and a genuine democratic policy will also prove its worth sub specie aeternitatis. Spiritual absolutism, the various forms of Caesaro-Papism and of temporal absolutism by which religion has been misused, will give place to a more exalted morality, a higher degree of humanity and a loftier religion which will freely guide the whole of public life. The ideal is Jesus, not Caesar. I say it is our task to make realities of the religion and the ethics of Jesus, of His pure and immaculate religion of humanity. He saw in the love of God and of one’s neighbour the fulfilment of the whole Law and the Prophets, the foundations of religion and of morality. All else is accessory. The spiritual absolutism that shared temporal rule with the State, was evil. It was the spirit of the Roman Empire. Julius Caesar, like Augustus and his successors, attached high importance to moral and religious reform; but modern man is no longer satisfied with a religion that the State dictates for political reasons. Therefore we need Jesus, not Caesar.
The Reformation was an attempt to realize the religion of Jesus according to the Gospels. By suspending the priesthood it undermined ecclesiastical and political aristocracy. The codification of the rights of man and of citizens was a direct consequence of the Reformation which, in its Calvinist rather than its Lutheran form, positively strengthened democracy and parliamentarism and, in Protestant countries, prepared believers for political responsibility by laicizing the ecclesiastical administration and by educating them to religion and moral independence. In Catholic and Orthodox countries, on the other hand, the strengthening of democracy was negative
