Religious Toleration in Classical Antiquity

Abstract

Toleration Implies disapproval or disagreement coupled with an unwillingness to take action against those who are viewed with disfavour in the interest of some moral or political principle. It is an active concept, not to be confused with indifference, apathy or passive acquiescence. In this paper I reexamine, in the light of this strong definition of toleration, the contrast commonly drawn for the world of classical antiquity between a tolerant paganism and an intolerant Christianity. Toleration implies a degree of acceptance as well as a degree of disapproval. In evaluating the attitudes of pagans to other pagans in antiquity we must satisfy ourselves, first, that ancient polytheistic systems were as open and inclusive as is often assumed, and second, that where mutual acceptance might be said to have prevailed, this was not merely casual acceptance, but entailed compromise between competing gods and rituals. Again where religions can be seen to have been seriously at variance with each other, as were the sundry pagan cults with Judaism and Christianity, where therefore toleration was at least in principle a possible option, we must ask how far pagan authorities and (in so far as this can be discerned) ordinary pagans were inclined to choose that option.

Cite this

Peter Garnsey (1984). Religious Toleration in Classical Antiquity. Studies in Church History. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0424208400007506

@article{peter1984religious,
  title  = {Religious Toleration in Classical Antiquity},
  author = {Garnsey, Peter},
  year   = {1984},
  journal = {Studies in Church History},
  doi    = {10.1017/s0424208400007506}
}

Citations in this library

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 161 citations exist upstream.

References

Cited by