Gotthold Lessing's 1779 play Nathan the Wise doesn't quite hold
up as theatre, but it survives as a didactic argument for
religious tolerance. Lessing's play is unique for its time in
making the Jewish patriarch Nathan, modeled after Lessing's
friend Moses Mendelssohn, the central character of the piece.
The play further makes its case with the often-noted 'ring
parable' in the third act, which suggests that religious
tolerance between the three major monotheisms (Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam) through a rational understanding of the
limits of human knowledge. According to the parable, an Eastern
patriarch owned a ring with "the magic power that he who wore
it, trusting its strength, was loved of God and men." The
patriarch had three sons and, while on his deathbed, realized
that all three would wish to inherit the ring. So, he had a
jewler make two more rings, "in all points identical", and gave
each son one of the rings, claiming that it was the magic ring.
The sons eventually go to battle and then to co