itself, and begins now an inner life--a complete concrete subjectivity,
which at the same time possesses a substantiality that is not grounded
in mere external existence.

Within the soul, therefore, arises the spiritual solution of the
struggle, in the fact that the individual personality, instead of
following its own capricious choice, is purified and elevated into
universality--a subjectivity that of its own free will adopts principles
tending to the good of all, reaches, in fact, a divine personality. To
the worldly empire this spiritual one wears a predominant aspect of
opposition, as the empire of subjectivity that has attained to the
knowledge of itself--itself in its essential nature--the empire of
spirit in its full sense.

The Christian community found itself in the Roman world, but as it was
secluded from this state, and did not hold the emperor for its absolute
sovereign, it was the object of persecution. Then was manifested its
inward liberty in the steadfastness with which sufferings were borne. As
regards its relation to the truth, the fathers of the Church built up
the dogma, but a chief element was furnished by the previous development
of philosophy. Just as Philo found a deeper import shadowed forth in the
Mosaic record and idealised what he considered the bare shell of the
narrative, so also did the Christians treat their records.

It was through the Christian religion that the absolute idea of God, in
if true conception, attained consciousness. Here man, too, finds
himself comprehended in his true nature, given in the specific
conception of "the Son." Man, finite when regarded for himself, is yet
at the same time the image of God and a fountain of infinity in himself.
Consequently he has his true home in a super-sensuous world--an infinite
subjectivity, gained only by a rupture with mere natural existence and
volition. This is religious self-consciousness.

The first abstract principles are won by the instrumentality of the
Christian religion for the secular state. First, under Christianity
slavery is impossible; for man as man--in the abstract essence of his
nature--is contemplated in God; each unit of mankind is an object of the
grace of God and of the divine purpose. Utterly excluding all
speciality, therefore, man, in and for himself--in his simple quality of
man--has infinite value; and this infinite value abolishes, _ipso
facto_, all particularity attaching to birth or country.

The othe