ABSTRACT
Tolerance requires an enormous degree of maturity, self-consciousness and self-respect, inner strength, and understanding of others at large. In the course of the early modern age, the idea of tolerance became more widespread, and then entered the central political discourse in the eighteenth century. However, it would be an illusion to believe that tolerance today constitutes a fundamental value shared by the vast majority of people, at least in the Western world. In antiquity, Quintus Aurelius Symmachus had still argued that the world of the divine, of spirituality, or the heavens would be much too complicated for people if they pursued only one path toward the deepest secrets. The history of Europe from the Middle Ages until today has been deeply determined by the ongoing struggle to find ways to establish a modus vivendi for the conflicting religious groups, especially Catholics versus Protestants, Christians against Jews, and also against Muslims.
