A visionary who had no other idea than the proximity of the last judgment, would not have had this care for the amelioration of man, and would not have given utterance to the finest moral teaching that humanity has received.

Much vagueness no doubt tinged his ideas, and it was rather a noble feeling than a fixed design, that urged him to the sublime work which was realized by him, though in a very different manner to what he imagined.
It was indeed the kingdom of God, or in other words, the kingdom of the Spirit, which he founded; and if Jesus, from the bosom of his Father, sees his work bear fruit in the world, he may indeed say with truth, "This is what I have desired." That which Jesus founded, that which will remain eternally his, allowing for the imperfections which mix themselves with everything realized by humanity, is the doctrine of the liberty of the soul.

Greece had already had beautiful ideas on this subject.[1] Various stoics had learned how to be free even under a tyrant.

But in general the ancient world had regarded liberty as attached to certain political forms; freedom was personified in Harmodius and Aristogiton, Brutus and Cassius.

The true Christian enjoys more real freedom; here below he is an exile; what matters it to him who is the transitory governor of this earth, which is not his home?
Liberty for him is truth.[2] Jesus did not know history sufficiently to understand that such a doctrine came most opportunely at the moment when republican liberty ended, and when the small municipal constitutions of antiquity were absorbed in the unity of the Roman empire.