Abstract
Abstract Religious coexistence and even mixed marital unions were an undeniable reality in many parts of early modern Europe. Despite occasional harsh criticisms by the clergy, church authorities often had no choice than to silently accept religious diversity as an embarrassing fact of life. This article addresses the rare case of the Danzig Lutheran preacher Martin Statius (1589–1655), who tried to articulate well-balanced guidelines for the question of how to deal with religious diversity in public and private spaces. In order to create a theological framework for the discussion of this problem, Statius distinguished between three forms of human love: “natural, civic and spiritual.” Categorizing love and friendship in this manner enabled Statius to bridge the deep gap between theological ideals and the unruly reality of everyday life and offers an illuminating insight into confessional discourses and their relation to the social reality in multiconfessional cities.
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