ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how two different thinkers in the sixteenth century, Desiderius Erasmus and Jean Bodin, develop theories of religious toleration based on the model of dialogue. While both view dialogue as a model for toleration, It argues that each presents a different version of dialogue from which he derives a separate theory of toleration. Bodin was impelled to consider the question of religious toleration in the République because he composed the work during the French Wars of Religion. Bodin, however, offers another, seemingly more modern justification for toleration that does not depend on a religion's veracity: the argument from conscience. The theory of toleration implicit in this type of dialogue is nothing short of an early version of the argument from truth, that is, the argument that free speech should be safeguarded because it leads to the discovery of truth. In addition, Bodin offers the argument from conscience as another justification of toleration.
