Religion Past and Present
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Subject: Religious Studies
Edited by: Hans Dieter Betz, Don S. Browning†, Bernd Janowski and Eberhard Jüngel
Religion Past and Present (RPP) Online is the online version of the updated English translation of the 4th edition of the definitive encyclopedia of religion worldwide: the peerless Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG). This great resource, now at last available in English and Online, Religion Past and Present Online continues the tradition of deep knowledge and authority relied upon by generations of scholars in religious, theological, and biblical studies. Including the latest developments in research, Religion Past and Present Online encompasses a vast range of subjects connected with religion.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
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Religion Past and Present (RPP) Online is the online version of the updated English translation of the 4th edition of the definitive encyclopedia of religion worldwide: the peerless Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG). This great resource, now at last available in English and Online, Religion Past and Present Online continues the tradition of deep knowledge and authority relied upon by generations of scholars in religious, theological, and biblical studies. Including the latest developments in research, Religion Past and Present Online encompasses a vast range of subjects connected with religion.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
Feßler, Joseph
(213 words)
[German Version] (Dec 2, 1813, Lochau – Apr 25, 1872, St. Pölten), bishop of St. (Sankt) Pölten and council secretary. He became a priest in 1837, a schoolmaster in 1838/39, professor of church history and canon law in Brixen in 1842, in Vienna in 1852 (after 1856 only of canon law), assistant bishop and vicar general for Vorarlberg in Feldkirch (diocese of Brixen) in 1862. He was bishop of St. Pölten from 1865 to 1872, and secretary of Vatican I in 1869/70. A moderate infallibilist (infallibility…
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Religion Past and Present
Festival of Weeks (Shavu'ot)
(10 words)
[German Version] Feasts and Festivals
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Religion Past and Present
Festivals
(445 words)
[German Version] The term
festivals (Ger.
Festspiele) embraces various cultural works and events.
1. Plays devoted to historical, political, or religious subjects were written and produced for special occasions. This genre, which appeared in the late 15th century, flourished in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. As an essential element of a court or national feast and as a staged self-reflexion, the festival served an apologetic or propagandistic function and was intended to establish or consolidate a group…
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Religion Past and Present
Festus, Porcius
(183 words)
[German Version] was Roman procurator in Judea from 60 to 62 ce. The beginning of his time in office, as well as the end of that of his predecessor Felix, is dated to the year 54 or 56, on the basis of the Armenian version of a Chronicle of Eusebius (GCS 20, 215) or on the version of Jerome (GCS 24, 182). A natural death ended his time in office. In contrast to his predecessor Felix and his successors Albinus and Gessius Florus, Festus seems to have been concerned, according to Flavius Josephus, who welcomed Festus's fight against the Zealots (
Bell. II 14.1;
Ant. XX 8.9), with executing his offic…
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Religion Past and Present
Fetishism
(669 words)
[German Version] In religious studies, fetishism is the belief in material objects in which superhuman forces or personal powers dwell. Thus, a fetish always consists of two components: the material object and the force or power that gives it life. In order to activate the fetish, a sacrifice to it must be made. Essentially, anything can be sacrificial material: blood, food, money, nails, and other things. The fetish sacrifice always has a
do ut des character. It is automatic: if sacrifices, rites, and formulas are performed as prescribed, the fetish must also become …
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Religion Past and Present
Feuchtwanger, Lion
(324 words)
[German Version] (Jacob Arie; Jul 7, 1884, Munich – Dec 21, 1958, Los Angeles). Although Feuchtwanger, from an Orthodox Jewish manufacturing family, chose the profession of a freelance writer early, he remained closely tied to Judaism as a source of tradition and as a shared fate all his life. After graduating with a dissertation on H. Heine in 1907, he started as a dramatist but became famous as a novelist in the 1920s. From 1925, Feuchtwanger lived with his wife Marta in Berlin, emigrated to Fra…
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Religion Past and Present
Feudalism
(971 words)
[German Version] I. Conceptual History – II. Feudalism in the Narrower Sense – III. Feudalism in the Broader Sense – IV. Open Questions
I. Conceptual History The term feudalism derives from medieval Latin
feudum, “fief.” It spread throughout Europe as the battle cry of the French Revolution of 1789.
Féodalité was used to describe not just feudal law but the whole hated system. Liberal criticism targeted the structure of estates and privileges as well as the serfdom of the peasantry as consequences of the feudal system. K. Marx introduced t…
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Religion Past and Present
Feudal System
(553 words)
[German Version] In the Middle Ages, investiture or enfeoffment (
infeudatio) was the provision of a third party with useful rights and properties (
dominium utile) as a loan, formalized through certain rites (commendation, homage, kiss of fealty, oath of fealty), which resulted in obligations owed by the recipient to the grantor. The fief or feudal benefice (Lat.
praedium, beneficium, and esp.
feudum) contrasts with
allodium (one's own property). In the 19th century, the abstract “feudalism” was derived from the French
féodalité, the abolition of which was among the chief d…
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Religion Past and Present
Feuerbach, Ludwig
(1,431 words)
[German Version] I. Life – II. Work – III. Influence (Jul 28, 1804, Landshut – Sep 13, 1872, Rechenberg, near Nürnberg)
I. Life The son of the legal theoretician Paul Johann Anselm (Ritter von) Feuerbach, he studied theology in Heidelberg especially under C. Daubl and philosophy in Berlin under G.F.W. Hegel. In Erlangen, he enrolled in botany, anatomy, and physiology (
De ratione, una, universali, infinita), and in 1829–1832 was active as
Privatdozent. The anonymous publication of his
Gedanken über Tod und Unsterblichkeit (ET:
Thoughts on Death and Immortality, 1830), in particu…
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Religion Past and Present
Feuillants
(142 words)
[German Version] The Feuillants are a reform order of the Cistercians (separated 1592) named for the abbey at Feuillant (Lat.
Fulium) near Toulouse and founded by abbot Jean-Baptiste de la Barrière O. Cist (1544–1600). It is characterized by rigorous intensification of the observance of the rule (going barefoot, sleeping on boards, kneeling to eat) and liturgical peculiarities. In 1630, it divided into a French congregation with 33 monasteries (abolished in the French Revolution) and an Italian congregation with 43…
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Religion Past and Present
Feurborn, Justus
(226 words)
[German Version] (Nov 13, 1587, Herborn – Feb 6, 1656, Gießen), Protestant theologian. In 1612, he began studying in Gießen, where he earned his Magister in ¶ 1614 and his Dr. Theol. in 1616, and was appointed associate professor, preacher, and ephorus of the scholarship holders in 1617. Following the transfer of the University to Marburg in 1624, he became its first professor of theology in 1627. In this function, he also officiated as the first rector of the University of Gießen following its restitution in 1650. He was…
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Religion Past and Present
Feyerabend, Paul
(144 words)
[German Version] (Jan 13, 1924, Vienna – Feb 11, 1994, Geneva) was an epistemologist who followed K.R. Popper in his early writings, but also turned against him after developing his own “anarchistic epistemology.” Feyerabend denies the existence of tenable criteria for scientific cognition. As with all other ways of experiencing the world, science can thus only be evalu-¶ ated under the perspective of creativity and originality. Feyerabend summarized this position by quoting the title of a Cole Porter hit, “Anything Goes.” Günter Figal Bibliography Works: “Against Method: Outli…
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Religion Past and Present
Fey, Klara
(187 words)
[German Version] (Clara; Apr 11, 1815, Aachen – May 8, 1894, Simpelveld, The Netherlands) was the daughter of a factory owner. Heavily influenced by her teacher L. Hensel, she found her way to charitable work at an early age. With the help of two friends, she opened a school for abandoned and neglected girls in 1837, for whose care and education she founded the congregation of the Sisters of the Poor Child Jesus in 1844. The mother-house in Aachen as well as many subsidiary houses having been disbanded in the wake of the
Kulturkampf , the founder of the order and lifel…
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Religion Past and Present
Fezer, Karl
(171 words)
[German Version] (Apr 18, 1891, Geislingen – Jan 13, 1960, Stuttgart), Dr. Dr. Theol, was professor of practical theology in Tübingen 1920–1959, also Ephorus of the Stift until 1956, and rector of the University 1933–1935. In 1933, Fezer was briefly a member of the Deutsche Christen, representative of the faculty conference in the negotiations for a new church order, and a member of the interim administration of the Evangelical Church in Germany. Despite his sympathies for National Socialism, he j…
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Religion Past and Present