ABSTRACT
This contribution will illuminate the historical origins of the word ‘tolerance’ and critically discuss its implications as an analytical and descriptive term from the perspective of the history of religion/Religionswissenschaft. In its original context, tolerance had a very limited and special usage in a late ancient discourse about religion. It served, the chapter will claim, as a means to create and upheld boundaries by claiming to minimise their social consequences. In the very same vein, but without acknowledging these consequences, it has been paramount in modern discourse about religious pluralism and the latter’s contribution to the naturalisation of a notion of several highly different and well-bordered religious ‘traditions’ rather than institutions only. The chapter will develop perspectives for future research in the framework of an approach to religion characterised by the concept of ‘lived religion’.
