The Eighteenth-Century Dutch ‘Toleration’ Debate

Abstract

ABSTRACTThere is a tendency in Dutch historiography to interpret the ‘eighteenth-century Dutch toleration debate’ in terms of its outcome. Historians use anachronistic definitions, in particular the definition of toleration as the non-discrimination of ‘otherness’; they often presuppose an erroneous distinction between irenicism (church unity) and toleration (social unity); they approach toleration exclusively through religious and moral categories; and they focus on toleration as an aspect of Enlightenment. This article suggests that it may be more worthwhile to approach the Dutch toleration debate from the past rather than the future. Early-modern use of the word ‘toleration’ was frequently concerned less with ‘otherness’ than with ‘sameness’: toleration referred first and foremost to the mutual forbearance of Christian brothers for the sake of peace and concord. Until the end of the eighteenth century, this idea of Christian brotherhood remained closely related to irenicism or the pursuit of church unification. In the course of the century, however, Christian brotherhood was increasingly associated with citizenship, which in turn implied allegiance to the orthodox (basically Trinitarian) basis of the state-church establishment. Hence Socinian and/or anti-Trinitarian beliefs and anti-clerical sentiments were seen as a ‘politically’ motivated assault on the Dutch ancien régime. To emphasize the moral stature of this attack or to qualify it as ‘Enlightened’ does not necessarily conduce to a better understanding of subversive or critical thought in the eighteenth-century Netherlands.