That there exist in the world such entities as ‘the religions’ is an uncontroversial claim. There may be discussion about whether the beliefs and practices which are said to constitute the various religions are legitimate or ‘true’, but few would deny that these systems exist. So too, the term ‘religion’, as a generic description of what the plural ‘religions’ are about, is part of everyday discourse and is used with some precision by scholars. However, it was not always so. The concepts ‘religion’ and ‘the religions’, as we presently understand them, emerged quite late in Western thought, during the Enlightenment. Between them, these two notions provided a new framework for classifying particular aspects of human life. The task of this study is a twofold one: first, to examine the emergence of the twin concepts ‘religion’ and ‘the religions’; and second, to give an account of the new science of religion which they made possible.