Religious Toleration

Jordan, Wilbur Ktchener. The development of religious toleration in England. Allen Unwin, 1932-1940. 4 vols... 

Before the underground attack most Japanese citizens saw Aum Shinrikyo as an oddity, but few perceived them as a menace to society. The Japanese are renowned as a people of religious tolerance and were accustomed to sects advocating various paths to enlightenment and... 

Finally, we note one of the most remarkable traits of this presence of Trismegistus— which is to say, of Hermetism, in the precise sense of the term editions, studies, and commentaries of the Corpus Hermeticum—as his irenical aspect. Wherever Hermes passes, religious tolerance prevails. 

How far it succeeded in deceiving the authorities, Jewish and Roman, is doubtful. 1 ean now show that one or two of the sparse references to Jesus that the ecclesiastical censors have allowed to eome on in Jewish written traditions demonstrate without doubt that, as least at the beginning, Jews knew full well what the Jesus was that the Christians worshipped. The references also show elearly that the Jews despised the whole business as much as did the Romans. The Romans eould not find words low enough to deseribe the Christians they hounded out from their secret meetings and tortured to death. And the Romans were famed for their religious tolerance Those most deceived appear to have been the sect who took over the name Christian ( semen-smeared ), and formed the basis of the modem church. 

Yet, religious tolerance in Harran had effectively ended some one hundred years before the Crusaders. The Seljuk Turks occupied Baghdad in 1055CE. The Sabian Schools of Baghdad and Harran made their way to Constantinople where Michael Psellus was leading a Platonic revival." Michael Psellus later became Prime Minister of Constantinople. 

Erie, Sir Walter (1586-1665) A Presbyterian opponent of religious toleration and thus of the Levellers. In the Long Parliament he was a supporter of war in 1642, was prominent in charging the earl of Strafford with treason, was a Colonel in the parliamentary army, and from 1643 to 1649 was Lieutenant of the Ordinance. He sat on a large number of parliamentary eommittees (260) until he fell victim to Pride s Purge in September 1648. A religious as well as political Presbyterian, he served as teller in 1645 and 1646 against both Independents... 

Persons s gloss on this is Behold heer a worthy wise example, which our English magistrals cannot but remember and think of , and he specifically invokes his Maiestie of Scotland" f who might presumably like to take note of this as an example of religious toleration potentially applicable to himself if and when he succeeded to the throne of England. 

The Variety of Rites Religious Toleration from Cyrus to Defoe. London and New York St Martin s Press. 

Laursen, John Christian and Cary Nederman (eds.) (1998), Beyond the Persecuting Society Religious Toleration before the Enlightenment. Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Press. 

Tannenbaum, Amie and Donald Tannenbaum (1992), John Locke and Pierre Bayle on Religious Toleration an Enquiry , Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 303, pp. 418 21. 

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