place to follow out these causes of contention in detail. The State claimed to be supreme over all religions, and in fact to make them a part of its own machinery. The Holy Catholic Church believed, and still believes, that there is a law higher than the law of the State. Christianity is absolute. The State’s ideal of religion was a syncretism (to use a word the German authors love) of national and partial religions: if the deities of a newly conquered nation were willing to take a seat in the Pantheon,