With the cosmopolitanism thus produced there went naturally a new individualism, which extended into the religious sphere. Under the city-state of ancient Greece the individual was subordinated to the life of the community. But in the world-empire the control of the state, just because it was broader, was at the same time looser. Patriotism no longer engrossed the thoughts of men. It was impossible for a subject of a great empire to identify himself with the life of the empire so completely as the free Athenian citizen of the age of Pericles had identified himself with the glories of his native city. Thus the satisfactions which in that earlier period had been sought in the life of the state, including the state-religion, were in the Hellenistic age sought rather in individual religious practice. The ancient religions of the city-state did indeed find a successor which was adapted to the changed condition. That successor was the worship of the Emperors. The worship of the Emperors was more than a mere form of flattery. It expressed a general gratitude for the reign of peace which was introduced by Augustus, and it had its roots, not only in Greek religion, but also, and far more fundamentally, in the religions of the East. The worship of the rulers was firmly established in the kingdoms into which Alexander's empire was divided, and from there it was transmitted very naturally to the new and greater empire of Rome. Very naturally it became a dangerous enemy of the Christian Church; for the refusal of the Christians to worship the Emperor seemed inexplicable to an age of polytheism, and gave rise to the charge of political disloyalty. At first, however, and so during the period of Paul's missionary journeys, the Church shared more or less in the special privileges which were granted to the Jews. Christianity at first seemed to be a variety of Judaism, and Judaism in Roman practice was a _religio licita_. But the worship of the Emperors, important as it was, was not practised in any exclusive way; it did not at all exclude the worship of other gods. It remains true, therefore, that in the Hellenistic age, far more than under the ancient Greek city-state, there was room for individual choice in religious practice.