The History of Religious Freedom in the West From Ancient Athens to the 17th Century Engelsk Artikel

Resumé

This paper presents the history of religious freedom and freedom of speech in Europe from Athens around 400 BC through pagan and Christian Rome, and the Middle Ages, to early modernity in the 16th and 17th centuries, ending with the American east cost around 1.700 AD. Despite the insistence of Enlightenment thinkers, there was more freedom in Rome than in Athens, and it was the pagan emperors who undermined Roman freedom. Unfortunately, Christian emperors followed their lead. In the 16th century it was the radical more so than the magisterial reformers who argued for tolerance. In the 17th century, John Locke and others completed the intellectual fight for freedom.