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.
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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
Jablonski, Daniel Ernst
(404 words)
[German Version] (Nov 20, 1660, Nassenhuben – May 25, 1741, Berlin), son of the “senior” of the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren (I) Peter Figulus (died 1670 in Memel) and of Elisabeth, daughter of the educator J.A. Comenius. Jablonski attended school in Lissa, studied theology in Frankfurt an der Oder, and spent the years 1680–1683 in Oxford, where he came to appreciate the Anglican Church as a “model of the first Christian church” (1708). He thereafter officiated as army chaplain in Magdeburg (168…
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Religion Past and Present
Jackson, Mahalia
(215 words)
[German Version] (Mahala; Oct 26, 1911, New Orleans, LA – Jan 27, 1972, Evergreen Park, IL), an Afro-American singer. Raised as the daughter of a dock worker and Baptist pastor, Mahalia Jackson began singing in the choir of her church congregation already as a five-year-old. From 1927 onward, she worked as a domestic employee in Chicago, but increasingly earned her livelihood from singing in churches. After being discovered by T. Dorsey (1935), she attained international fame through concerts and …
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Religion Past and Present
Jacob
(1,848 words)
[German Version] I. Old Testament – II. Judaism
I. Old Testament
1. Name The anthroponym
Jacob (יַעֲקוֹב/
yaʿaqôb) is attested as a common name throughout the ancient Near East from Mesopotamia and Egypt in the 2nd millennium as
ia(
ḫ)
qub-(
ēl) to late 1st-millennium Palmyra as
yʿqwb. As a sentence name it derives from the verbal root
ʿqb (Old South Arab. and Eth.: “protect”; Ug.: “be near”), so that the theophoric form may be translated “God protects” or “God is near.” In the Hebrew Bible, only the hypocoristic form without a theophoric subject ¶ occurs. The Hebrew Bible derives the n…
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Religion Past and Present
Jacob Baradaeus
(181 words)
[German Version] (
Būrdʿānā, “the tattered,” Gk
Tzantzalos; c. 490, northern Mesopotamia – Jul 30, 578, on the way to Egypt to settle a Syriac-Coptic dispute). A strict ascetic, Baradaeus (at the prompting of the Ghassanid Arabs and the empress Theodora) was ordained in 542/543 in Constantinople by Theodosius of Alexandria as bishop of Edessa. Constantly travelling in the East, as far as Egypt, he ordained many priests and (with two companion bishops) 27 bishops ¶ and two patriarchs (in sequence) and, thus, reorganized his “Jacobite” Syriac Orthodox Church (Syria: V, 2)…
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Religion Past and Present
Jacob ben Asher
(139 words)
[German Version] (
Baʾal ha-Turim; c. 1270–1343). Jacob ben Asher fled the German lands together with his father's household and settled in Toledo in 1305. Although he was not himself a rabbi, he composed a four-part code of rabbinic law that integrated much of his German heritage with local Spanish traditions. Unlike Maimonides's earlier
Mishne Tora, the
Arbaʿa Turim (The Four Rows, see Exod 28:17) introduced multiple possibilities into the legal discussion and was organized in a functional rather than conceptional format. The work very quickly became…
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Religion Past and Present
Jacob ben Meir Tam
(151 words)
[German Version] (Rabbenu Tam, “our teacher Tam,” likely following Gen 25:27 in which the word “tam” suggests studiousness; c. 1100–1171) was the scion of a leading rabbinic family (his grandfather was Rashi). He left Ramerupt, where he had lived for many years, to move to Troyes (Champagne), after escaping death during the second of the Crusades in 1146. Rabbenu Tam was considered the greatest halakhic (Halakhah) authority of his age, even by distant contemporaries. His revival of talmudic dialec…
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Religion Past and Present
Jacob, Benno
(325 words)
[German Version] (Sep 7, 1862, Breslau [Wrocław] – Jan 24, 1945, London). After doctoral studies (diss.:
Das Buch Esther in der LXX, 1889, publ. 1890), Jacob taught religion at a college in Breslau, then served as a rabbi in Göttingen (1891–1906) and Dortmund (1906–1929). He was one of the most significant biblical scholars of the 20th century. His time in Hamburg (1929–1938) saw the completion of his monumental commentary on Genesis (1934, repr. 2000) and the start of his work on his equally monumental commentary o…
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Religion Past and Present
Jacob, Günter
(375 words)
[German Version] (Feb 8, 1906, Berlin – Sep 29, 1993, Berlin). After studying theology in Tübingen, Berlin, and Marburg, Jacob received his licentiate in theology in 1929 and served a curacy in Berlin. In 1931/1932 he served as an assistant pastor in Körlin and from 1932 to 1939 as pastor in Nossdorf. In 1933 he was cofounder of the Pastors Emergency League. He was a member of the provincial Fraternal Council. After several interments, he served as a soldier from 1939 to 1945 and became a prisoner…
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Religion Past and Present
Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich
(560 words)
[German Version] (Jan 25, 1743, Düsseldorf – Mar 10, 1819, Munich), philosopher and novelist. He was one of the most outstanding personalities of classical German philosophy, their “gray eminence.” He called himself a “privileged heretic,” aptly characterizing his epoch-making double role. Owing to his thorough problem analyses, which were initially devoted to B. Spinoza's metaphysics (which only really became known through Jacobi) and to I. Kant's just published transcendental philosophy, Jacobi …
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Religion Past and Present
Jacobi, Gerhard
(126 words)
[German Version] (Nov 25, 1891, Bremen – Jul 12, 1971, Oldenburg), Dr., became cathedral preacher in Magdeburg in 1927, was pastor in Berlin from 1930 onward, officiated as general superintendent of the church district of Magdeburg from 1946 onward and as regional bishop of Oldenburg from 1954 to 1967. Jacobi was a co-founder and leading member of the Confessing Church in Berlin as well as a member of its executive committees. In 1966, he acted as co-initiator of the regular ecumenical dialogue be…
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Religion Past and Present
Jacob Isaac of Lublin
(204 words)
[German Version] (ha-Choseh, “The Seer”) (1745–1815, Lublin) is regarded as the father of Hasidism in Poland and Galicia and is one of the leading representatives of the third Hasidic generation. The epithet “The Seer” was given to him as he was believed to have miraculous visionary powers. His most important teachers were Rabbi Dov Baer of Mezhirech, the spiritual heir of Baʾal Shem Tov, and Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk, from whom he distanced himself after a number of years of wandering, when he …
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Religion Past and Present
Jacobitism
(208 words)
[German Version] Defined broadly, Jacobitism is a tradition or movement in Great Britain, whose adherents after 1688 supported the hereditary claims of the Roman Catholic Stuart dynasty over the parliamentary title of the Protestant William of Orange (and his Hanoverian successors). Apart from its military and diplomatic dimensions, exemplified in the invasion attempt of 1715 and 1745, Jacobitism also had important intellectual, social, literary, philosophical, nationalistic, and theological dimensions. Not all Jacobites were Roman Cath-¶ olic: many High Church (High C…
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Religion Past and Present
Jacob Joseph of Polonnoye
(208 words)
[German Version] (died c. 1782, Polonnoye, Ukraine) was a Hasidic theologian (Hasidism), ¶ preacher and rabbi. He was a prominent disciple of the founder of the movement, Rabbi Israel Besht (Baʾal Shem Tov). Jacob served as a rabbi in Shargorod, in the Ukrainian area of Podolia, from which he was expelled in 1748. Late in his life he became the rabbi of Polonnoye. Jacob was never a leader of a Hasidic community, but he wrote the first Hasidic book to be published:
Toledot Yaʾakov Yosef. (The titles of his books are based on biblical phrases which include his name, here Gen 37:2…
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Religion Past and Present
Jacob of Edessa
(242 words)
[German Version] (c. 640, ʿĒn Dēbā near Antioch – Jun 5, 708, Tell ʿAddā monastery), Syrian Orthodox theologian. After studying under Severos Sēbōkt at the Qennešrin monastery, Jacob of Edessa went to Alexandria and subsequently returned to Edessa, where he was appointed bishop in 684. Owing to contentions with the clergy over the observance of the church canons (Canons/Canon collections), however, he relinquished his office already in 688 and retired to a monastery in the vicinity of Samosata. Fr…
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Religion Past and Present
Jacob of Mies
(92 words)
[German Version] (Jakobell; c. 1370–1429), Hussite theologian. Like his friend J. Hus, Jacob of Mies studied as a follower of J. Wycliffe in Prague (
magister in 1397). A mastermind of the Hussite movement following Hus's departure, his introduction of the compulsory lay chalice (1414; Chalice) represented the first step toward the Utraquist church in independence from Rome. Although himself an “iconoclast,” he became an opponent of the radical Taborites after the outbreak of the Hussite revolution in 1419. Peter Hilsch Bibliography P. de Vooght,
Jacobellus de Stříbro, 1972 (Fr.).
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Religion Past and Present
Jacob of Paradyz
(263 words)
[German Version] (Jacobus de Paradiso, de Claratumba, de Erfordia, Carthusiensis; 1381–1465) is attested after 1400 as a Cistercian in the Paradyz monastery (Goscikowo near Miedzyrzecz/Meseritz) and from 1420 onward in the Claratumba monastery (Mogiła), when he was also enrolled at the University of Cracow. He was awarded a Dr.theol. in 1432 and became a Carthusian in Erfurt in 1442/1443 (not to be confused with J. v. Jüterbog [died 1461], another Carthusian in Erfurt). Jacob of Paradyz wrote more…
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Religion Past and Present
Jacob of Sarug
(205 words)
[German Version] (451, Upper Mesopotamia – 521, Batna/Sarug), prolific Syrian church author. Having become an ascetic at a young age, he officiated as episcopal visitor in Haura and was appointed bishop of Batna/Sarug in 518. He was initially a follower, though later an opponent of the School of Antioch (Antiochene theology) and professed a Christology situated between the positions of Alexandria (Alexandrian theology) and Chalcedon (Chalcedonian Definition). He ¶ mainly wrote metrical homilies (
mēmre), but also hymns, prose homilies and letters on biblical exegesis …
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Religion Past and Present
Jacob of Viterbo
(152 words)
[German Version] (c. 1250, Viterbo – 1307/1308, Naples), OESA, a Scholastic theologian (Scholasticism), a student of Giles of Rome, and, from 1302, archbishop of Benevent and Naples. He studied and lectured at the University of Paris (1283: lecturer in the order, 1288: Bac.theol., from 1293: lectureship as Mag.theol.). From 1300 to 1302, he officiated as
primus lector in the
studium generale of the Augustinian Hermits in Naples. His tractate
De regimine christiano (ed. H.-X. Arquillière, 1926) had a formative impact on the ecclesiology of the subsequent period. Ralph Weinbrenner Bib…
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Religion Past and Present
Jacob of Vitry
(249 words)
[German Version] (before 1170, probably in the area of Reims – May 1, 1240, Rome), studied in Paris, and was an Augustinian canon in Oigniès (1211–1216) and father confessor of the Beguine Mary of Oigniès. From 1213, he was active as a preacher against the Albigenses and for the Crusades. He became bishop of Akko in 1216 and participated in the fifth Crusade from 1218 to 1221. In 1226/1227, he was appointed auxiliary bishop in Liège, became cardinal bishop of Tusculum in 1229, and in 1240 was elected patriarch of Jerusalem, but not confirmed by the pope. His writings include:
Vita Mariae Oigni…
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Religion Past and Present
Jacobsen, Jens Peter
(109 words)
[German Version] (Apr 7, 1847, Thisted – Apr 30, 1885, Thisted), Danish writer. Jacobsen based his naturalistic writing and his emphatic atheism on Darwinism. His novels (
Fru Marie Grubbe, 1876; ET:
Marie Grubbe: A Lady of the Seventeenth Century, 1917, 21975);
Niels Lyhne, 1880; ET:
Niels Lyhne, 1919), short stories (
Pesten i Bergamo, 1882; ET: “The Plague of Bergamo,” in:
Mogens and Other Tales, 1921), and poetry tended toward impressionistic decadence and a melancholy picture of a world without God. He was an inspiration for European modernism, especiall…
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Religion Past and Present
Jacob's Ladder
(451 words)
[German Version] The dream in which the patriarch Jacob beholds the ladder that leads to heaven (Gen 28:11–15) is already given a typological interpretation in the New Testament (John 1:51) and in patristic literature (e.g. Aug.
Civ. XVI 38; CChr.SL 48, 543f.). In the artistic renderings of the subject, Jacob is depicted lying on the ground, while an inclined ladder carrying two or three angels and situated immediately next to him is shown leading upward. The oldest preserved representation is found in the synagogue of Dura-Europos (II; 245–256 ce), in which the angels' conspicuous…
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Religion Past and Present
Jacobson, Heinrich Friedrich
(110 words)
[German Version] Jun 8, 1804, Marienwerder – Mar 19, 1868, Königsberg [Kaliningrad]). Jacobson, of Jewish birth, was professor of both secular and ecclesiastical law at Königsberg from 1831 to his death. He wrote a treatise of Prussian law (
Der Preussische Staat, 1854), but his reputation rests primarily on his
Das Evangelische Kirchenrecht des preussischen Staates und seiner Provinzen (2 vols., 1864–1866) and his unfinished
Geschichte der Quellen des Kirchenrechts des Preussischen Staats (1837ff.). His works are characterized by positivistic legal particularism an…
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Religion Past and Present
Jacobson, Israel
(147 words)
[German Version] (Oct 17, 1768, Halberstadt – Sep 14, 1828, Berlin), came to Braunschweig as a young man. There he succeeded his father-in-law as the ducal
Kammeragent and regional rabbi for the Weser district in 1794/1795. In the Westphalian consistory of Israelites, ¶ established on the French model, Jacobson held the office of chairman from 1808. Influenced by Enlightenment ideas, Jacobson was involved early on in the modernization of Jewish school education. His ideas for reconfiguring synagogue worship, which he was able to realize …
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Religion Past and Present
Jacopone da Todi
(180 words)
[German Version] (c. 1230, Todi – 1306, Collazzone near Todi). Jacopone was initially a notary. After the sudden death of his wife, Vanna di Bernardino, he suffered a spiritual crisis. In 1278, he entered the order of the Minorites and sided with the Franciscan Rigorists (Spiritual Franciscans). Celestine V permitted the Spirituals to live in the congregation founded by the pope (Celestines) according to the Fransciscan Rule. After Celestine's abdication and the election of Boniface VIII, the Spir…
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Religion Past and Present
Jacquelot (Jaquelot), Isaac
(207 words)
[German Version] (Dec 16, 1647, Vassy – Oct 20, 1708, Berlin). Jacquelot succeeded his father as Protestant minister in Vassy; after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 (France: III, 1; Huguenots), he took refuge in Heidelberg. In 1686 he became pastor of the French congregation in The Hague. His
Avis sur le tableau du socinianisme (1690) brought him into conflict with P. Jurieu, so that he withdrew to Basel. In 1702 he was called to Berlin by Frederick I; he served as court chaplain there until his death. In his writings, he argued with suc…
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Religion Past and Present
Jaeger, Lorenz
(204 words)
[German Version] (Sep 23, 1892, Halle an der Saale – Apr 1, 1975, Paderborn), since 1941 archbishop of Paderborn, was named cardinal in 1965, and retired from office in 1973. Jaeger's significance urging the Catholic Church's participation in the ecumenical movement is undisputed. Two institutions trace their foundation essentially to him. In 1946, together with W. Stählin, Jaeger initiated the Ökumenischer Arbeitskreis evangelischer und katholischer Theologen (ÖAK) and, in 1957, the Johann Adam M…
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Religion Past and Present
Jaeger, Werner Wilhelm
(255 words)
[German Version] (Jul 30, 1888, Lobberich – Oct 19, 1961, Boston), a classical philologist, studied philosophy and ancient philology beginning in 1907 in Marburg and Berlin, became an instructor in Berlin in 1914, and was professor in Basel (1914), Kiel (1915), and Berlin (1921). He was dismissed from the Prussian civil service in 1936 at his own request for political and family reasons and emigrated to the United States, where he was professor in Chicago (1937) and Harvard (from 1939). After defi…
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Religion Past and Present
Jaffa
(263 words)
[German Version] (Joppa, Yaffo or Yaffa el-'Atiqa), a coastal site, is situated on a promontory, on the southern part of the modern city of Tel Aviv-Yaffo in Israel. Jaffa is mentioned in ancient texts of the 2nd and 1st millennia bce. It was conquered in the 15th century bce and became an Egyptian stronghold mentioned in the Amarna Letters (Amarna, Tell el-Amarna) and Papyrus Anastasi I. Jaffa appears in an Akkadian text sent from Ugarit and found at Aphek. It was conquered in 701 bce by Sennacherib. Jaffa was in the (theoretical) boundary of the tribe of Dan (Josh 19:46; Trib…
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Religion Past and Present
Jäger, Johann Wolfgang
(303 words)
[German Version] (Mar 17, 1647, Stuttgart – Apr 11 [not: 2], 1720, Tübingen), Lutheran theologian, was the son of a Württemberg official. He studied in Tübingen, received the M.A. in 1669 and, from 1671, was tutor to two sons of the duke in Tübingen, whom he accompanied to Switzerland and Italy. As professor of philosophy in Tübingen (from 1678), he initially taught geography and Latin, then Greek, later ethics, and finally logic and metaphysics. He became professor of theology in 1690, received t…
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Religion Past and Present
Jainism
(1,341 words)
[German Version] I. History of Religions – II. Missiology
I. History of Religions Jainism is a religion of India that appeared in the 5th century bce in the eastern Ganges basin in the region of the modern states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, in the same religious and social environment as Buddhism. Its messenger Mahāvīra, a contemporary of the Buddha, received the honorific title
Jina (“Victor”), after which his followers call themselves Jains. Like Buddhism, Jainism rejected the authority of the Vedas, thus breaking with Brahmanism (Hinduism); it was there…
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Religion Past and Present
Jamaa
(509 words)
[German Version] Jamaa, Kiswahili for “family,” is a movement of renewal inside the Roman Catholic Church in the Belgian Congo (Congo, Democratic Republic) of the late 1950s. What made it unusual was not only its location inside a major “mission church,” but also the fact that it was generated from the encounter between European mission and African congregations. The origins of Jamaa lie in the ministry of P. Tempels, a Belgian Franciscan priest in North Katanga. Tempels (born 1906) had arrived in the Congo in 1933 and the first 13 years of his ministr…
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Religion Past and Present
Jamaica
(505 words)
[German Version] is the third largest of the Greater Antilles situated in the Caribbean with an area of 10,991 km2. Jamaica's population in 2000 was approx. 2.6 million, of whom 90% were of African origin and 7.3% Creoles; 5.5% belong to the Anglican Church, 55.8% belongs to other Protestant churches (see below), approx. 8% are Catholic, 5% Rastafari, 5% Hindu, and 2% of Chinese religion. In 1494 C. Columbus discovered the island, which was populated by the Arawak Indians. These almost completely disappeared during Spanish rule. In 1655 Jamaica became a Briti…
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Religion Past and Present
James, Brother of Jesus
(353 words)
[German Version] James maintained his distance from the earthly Jesus (Mark 3:21, 31–35; 6:1–6; John 7:5). The parallel synoptic accounts and John 2:1–12 already correct this. According to 1 Cor 15:7, James was a witness to Jesus' resurrection. It appears that this was the main reason why the mother and brothers of Jesus (Jesus, Brothers and Sisters of) joined the Christian community at an early stage (Acts 1:14). Paul already noticed him on his first visit to Jerusalem (Gal 1:19). At the council,…
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Religion Past and Present
James, Epistle of
(1,096 words)
[German Version] In the New Testament corpus of Epistles, James heads the seven “Catholic Epistles”; it presents itself as a letter to Christians in a non-Christian environment (“to the twelve tribes in the Diaspora”: 1:1). The author writes under the name of James, brother of Jesus, to claim for his work the authority of the Lord's brother, by virtue of the respect he enjoyed as a leading figure in the Jerusalem community. It is safe to assume that the epistle was written in the late 1st century (c. 80–100); its place of composition can hardly be identified. The structure, form, and conten…
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Religion Past and Present
James I
(169 words)
[German Version] (Stuart, of England; Jun 19, 1566, Edinburgh – Mar 27, 1625, London). In 1603, on the death of Elizabeth I, James VI of Scotland was crowned King James I of England. Opposed to Presbyterianism and the Church of Scotland 's political influence he attempted to impose episcopacy in Scotland. In England, James's ecclesiastical policies met with mixed success. At the Hampton Court Conference (1604) he exhibited considerable theological knowledge and authorized a new translation of the …
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Religion Past and Present
James, Liturgy of Saint
(281 words)
[German Version] James, Liturgy of Saint, is the indigenous eucharistic liturgy of the Holy Land, named after the Lord's brother, James, verifiable as the foundation for the fourth and fifth mystagogical catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem or John of Jerusalem; passages are also already evident in Eusebius of Caesarea and in the eucharistic prayer in Origen. In terms of content, the sequence, formulated strictly in accordance with salvation history, of
post-sanctus, words of institution, anamnesis, and epiclesis, and the extraordinary scope of the intercessions are n…
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Religion Past and Present
James of Voragine
(323 words)
[German Version] (1228/1229, Varazze near Genoa – Jul 13/14, 1298, Genoa). James became a Dominican (Dominicans) in 1244, sub prior in 1258, then prior in Genoa, Asti, Como, and Milan, and, at the age of 37, provincial prior of Lombardy (1267–1277, 1281–1287). In 1274, he participated in the Council of Lyon (Lyon, Councils of). James strove for the expansion of his order (founding a nunnery in Genoa and a convent in Fano). After the death of the fourth Master General John of Vercelli in 1283, Jame…
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Religion Past and Present
James, Son of Alpheus
(10 words)
[German Version] Twelve, The (Disciples)
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Religion Past and Present
James, Son of Zebedee
(277 words)
[German Version] (Disciple). In the Synoptics, James and John are “the sons of Zebedee” (Matt 4:21; Mark 1:19; Luke 5:10), whom Jesus called as disciples with Peter. Mark adds the Aramaic sobriquet “Boanerges,” translated as “sons of thunder.” James appears in all four New Testament lists of the Twelve (Matt 10:2; Mark 3:17; Luke 6:14; Acts 1:13). Although the Fourth Gospel knows of the twelve (John 6:70f.) it provides no list. James is not named in the Fourth Gospel, but “those of Zebedee” are am…
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Religion Past and Present
James, William
(424 words)
[German Version] James, William, (Jan 11, 1842, NY – Aug 26, 1910, Cocorua, NH), American philosopher and psychologist. He began teaching at Harvard University in 1872. He established the first American laboratory for experi-¶ mental psychology. Together with C.S. Peirce, he founded the philosophy of American pragmatism, James being the first to publish and popularize it. According to him, pragmatism is a theory of truth (VII) that proceeds from the assumption that true concepts, true opinions, and true statements have extraordi…
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Religion Past and Present
Jänicke, Johannes
(241 words)
[German Version] (orig. Jenjk; Jul 6, 1748, Berlin – Jul 21, 1827, Berlin) was the founder of the first German missions seminar and one of the leading minds in the Berlin Awakening movement (Revival/Revival movements: I). As the son of Bohemian Protestants admitted to Prussia, the weaver by trade experienced ¶ conversion in Münsterberg, Silesia, and studied theology in Leipzig (1774–1777). After working as a teacher in Barby (1777/1778) and his Lutheran ordination (Jun 25, 1779), he became a preacher in the Bohemian church in Berlin and Rixdorf,…
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Religion Past and Present
Jannasch, Wilhelm
(176 words)
[German Version] (Apr 8, 1888, Gnadenfrei, Silesia – Jun 6, 1966, Frankfurt am Main), became a pastor in 1914, and was senior pastor at St. Ägidien in Lübeck from 1921. He was forced into retirement in 1934, worked actively in the Confessing Church, and became pastor of the confessing congregation in Berlin-Friedenau in 1939. He was later professor of practical theology in Mainz (1946–1956) and the founding dean of the faculty, and also served in the administration of the church. His ambitious biography of
Erdmuthe Dorothea Gräfin von Zinzendorf appeared in 1915. His
Reformationsgeschic…
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Religion Past and Present
Jansen, Cornelius Otto
(138 words)
[German Version] (Nov 3, 1585, Leerdam, Netherlands – May 6, 1638, Ypres, Belgium), theologian. He studied theology in Leuven and, after 1609, in France where he became acquainted and collaborated with J. Duvergier de Hauranne. After returning to ¶ Leuven, he taught theology, ultimately (after 1630) at the university. He polemicized against the Jesuits and the policy of Richelieu. He became bishop of Ypres in 1636 and was a zealous pastor. After extended study of the works of the great church father Augustine, in 1627 he began his foundational work,
Augustinus, in which he developed …
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Religion Past and Present
Jansen, Hendrik
(146 words)
[German Version] (c. 1520, Barneveld, Netherlands – after 1594, Cologne), a nonconformist and mystical lay theologian, called “van Barneveld” after his birthplace (Berrefelt, Berreveldt). The poorly educated weaver became a follower of H. Niclaes and was soon one of his closest confidants. After 1573, Jansen preached a radically individualistic mysticism. On the basis of a vision, he wrote under the pseudonym Immanuel Hiel (“the immanent life of God”) many essays and circular letters for the “adhe…
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Religion Past and Present
Jansenism
(1,526 words)
[German Version] I. Theology and Religious Practice – II. History – III. Assessment The term
Jansenism denotes a theological position and critical reform movement within Catholicism that was most influential in France and the Low Countries during the 17th and 18th centuries. It was founded by C. Jansen and J. Duvergier de Hauranne, who built on earlier ideas of M. Baius. It had far-reaching effects on political, intellectual, and cultural history.
I. Theology and Religious Practice Appealing to the Augustinian tradition and arguing against the Jesuit L. de Molina (
Libri arbitrii …
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Religion Past and Present
Janssen, Arnold
(179 words)
[German Version] (Nov 5, 1837, Goch – Jan 15, 1909, Steyl), priest, ordained in 1861 in Münster. Janssen taught in Bocholt (1861–1873), became editor and publisher of the missions journal,
Kleiner Herz Jesu-Bote in 1874, and founded the Society of the Divine Word in Steyl, Holland on Sep 8, 1875 (Steyler missionaries), which sent its first missionaries to China in 1879. In addition to the missions journal, its journalistic and economic media were the family journal
Stadt Gottes and the
Steyler Michaelskalender. In 1885, Janssen was appointed general superior for life. The ad…
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Religion Past and Present
Janssen, Johannes
(353 words)
[German Version] (Apr 10, 1829, Xanten – Dec 24, 1891, Frankfurt am Main), Catholic historiographer. Janssen was the most influential historical defendant of a rigid ecclesialism, heavily influenced by the Rhenish Romanticism of the Brentano Circle, by the anti-Prussian imperial patriotism of the Frankfurt Protestant historian Johann Friedrich Böhmer, and by the critical stance of the Frisian-Guelphic historian Onno Klopp toward Luther and the Hohenzollerns. Janssen was appointed
Privatdozent in history in Münster (1854), obtained a position as
Gymnasium teacher in Frankf…
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Religion Past and Present
Januarius, Saint
(191 words)
[German Version] (died 305 ce), bishop of Benevento, was a martyr in the Diocletian persecution (Persecutions of Christians: I), beheaded along with his companions (Sosius, Festus, Proculus, Desiderius, Eutychius, Acutius) in Puteoli. It is unlikely that he is identical with the participant in the Council of Sardica in 342/343 (Homoeans) of the same name. The local bishop, John I (died 432), transferred his remains to Naples, where they were finally deposited in 1494 after two additional translation…
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Religion Past and Present
Janus
(376 words)
[German Version] The earliest evidence of a Roman deity Janus (the name is morphologically unclear), although with no relation to
ianus (“gate”) or to a numen of the gate arch (Latte, 135; Varro,
De Lingua Latina, 5.162f. knows of a
porta ianualis at the Palatine; Thraede, 64/6, 68; Rome had many
iani [Ovid,
Fasti 1.257]) is the address to
Iane pater in the
lustratio prayer in Cato,
De agri cultura 134.2; 141.1. A cult (dedications, altars, temple, festival), cannot be demonstrated before Augustus (the first certain dedication of a temple in 17 ce [Tacitus,
Annales, 2.49; Thraede, 68f.])…
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Religion Past and Present
Japan
(7,003 words)
[German Version] I. General Facts – II. History and Culture – III. History of Religion – IV. History of Christianity – V. Orthodox Church – VI. Japanese Religions, Missiology
I. General Facts The Japanese archipelago (
nippon rettō) consists of four main islands and several smaller ones with a total area of 373,534 km2. Honshū, the largest island by far (227,414 km2), is the country's geographical middle. All the political power centers of Japanese history (Nara, Kyōto, Kamakura, and Edo/Tokyo) are situated here. Owing to its proximity to the southe…
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Religion Past and Present
Japanese Americans
(244 words)
[German Version] The Japanese first emigrated to Hawaii in 1868 and to the United States in the 1890s. Although most were males, more women joined at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1924, this immigration came to a halt owing to anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States. During World War II, the Japanese on the west coast were forcibly resettled in internment camps. In 1952, Japanese immigration was once again permitted and the first generation could apply for American citizenship. Becaus…
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Religion Past and Present
Japanese Missions
(439 words)
[German Version] Protestant missions overseas were closely related in Japan to the history of Japanese expansion and aggression in Asia. Several churches limited their mission overseas to Japanese residents. The Congregational Church in Japan, however, took the colonization of the Korean Peninsula in 1910 as an opportunity for mission among Koreans (Korea). It aimed partly to assimilate them to the Japanese nation. Antagonistic voices were ignored. The Korean Independent Movement from Mar 1, 1919,…
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Religion Past and Present
Japanese Theater
(428 words)
[German Version] The ritual roots of Japanese theater are evident even today in all its varied forms of performance. The extraordinary number and variety of the religious and secularized folk theater performances (in the 1980s they numbered more than 30,000) are largely associated with the annual traditions at temples and shrines, including the cultic Kagura (roughly “divine dramas”) with court or village variants. Classical genres such as Noh Drama, Kyôgen, Bunraku, Kabuki, transmitted over centu…
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Religion Past and Present
Jaricot, Marie-Pauline
(191 words)
[German Version] (Jul 22, 1799, Lyon – Jan 9, 1862, Lyon), a layperson involved in the restoration of French Catholicism. She devoted her life to founding pious societies which pursued benevolent and missionary objectives. In 1817 the Congrégation des Réparatrices du Sacré Cœur and La Loretta, a guesthouse for female workers, arose from her prayer groups for girls. Upon the establishment of the Association de la Propagation de la Foi (“Society for the Propagation of the Faith”) in 1822, she introduced the practice of gathering funds through a “weekly missionary
sou.” In the same year,
Les…
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Religion Past and Present
Jaspers, Karl
(806 words)
[German Version] (Feb 23, 1883, Oldenburg – Feb 26, 1969, Basel). Following his medical studies, Jaspers worked in the University of Heidelberg's psychiatric clinic. He completed his Habilitation in 1913, also in Heidelberg, at the philosophical faculty in the discipline of psychology; he became associate professor of psychology in 1916 and professor of philosophy in 1921. In 1937, he was forced into retirement and forbidden to publish after 1938. In 1945, he resumed his teaching responsibilities …
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Religion Past and Present
Jātaka
(276 words)
[German Version] (Pāli/Sanskrit: birth narratives), designation for a narrative of an event from one of the earlier lives of the Buddha. Jātaka are considered one of the nine compositional forms (
anga) of Buddhist literature. In addition to the canonical Jātaka, narratives of the same type are dispersed throughout Buddhist literature in diverse languages. The center of the Jātaka is composed in verse form and is attributed to the Buddha himself. Strictly speaking, only these verses have canonical status, while the greater se…
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Religion Past and Present
Jatho, Karl Wilhelm
(258 words)
[German Version] (Sep 25, 1851, Kassel – Mar 11, 1913, Cologne). After attending school and military service, Jatho studied theology in Marburg and Leipzig. In 1876, he entered the service of the church (pastor in Bucharest and Boppard am Rhein). After 1891, he held office in Cologne. In 1903, Jatho published the first collection of his sermons. This publication and subsequent others of a similar nature attracted great attention because of their vibrant expression of religion, although they also e…
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Religion Past and Present
Javorskij, Stefan
(158 words)
[German Version] (Semën Ivanovič; 1658, Javorov near Lemberg – Nov 24, 1722, Moscow). After studying in Polish Jesuit schools, he returned to Kiev in 1689 where he taught in the college and served as abbot. As metropolitan of Rjazan', he was appointed by Peter the ¶ Great administrator of the patriarchate in 1700 and president of the newly created Holy Synod in 1721, although he inwardly opposed Peter's reform plans. Thus, when Peter commissioned an expert's opinion on a union project by the Sorbonne in 1717, the elaboration by Javorskij's …
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Religion Past and Present
Jawlensky, Aleksey von
(319 words)
[German Version] (Mar 26, 1864, Toršok – Mar 15, 1941, Wiesbaden). After a military career in Moscow and six years of study at the Petersburg Academy, Jawlensky went with Marianne Werefkin to Munich in 1896; there, he made the acquaintance of W. Kandinsky in 1897. He met H. Matisse in Paris in 1905. He became acquainted with the Dutch monk and painter Willibrord Verkade from the monastery of Beuron, who introduced him to the teachings of P. Gauguin and the work of the theosophist Edouard Schuré. I…
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Religion Past and Present
Jazz
(164 words)
[German Version] Originally an African American musical style and performance practice, jazz is played throughout the world today. Its roots lie in the traditions of vocal and instrumental music and of dance as expressed in the worksongs of slaves, in the shout, in ritual vocalization, and in spirituals. The latter were characterized by slides, glissandi, blue notes, improvisations, complex rhythmic and melodic interconnections, snycopations, and responsorial elements. Early jazz groups often impr…
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Religion Past and Present
Jazz Worship Services
(176 words)
[German Version] Jazz Worship Services, Christian liturgies (Liturgy), including the ordinary of the mass, morning and evening prayer (Liturgy of the Hours), with congregational and choral settings of psalms and hymns, for instrumental and vocal jazz ensembles. Early concert performances include “Liturgical Jazz” (1960) by Edgar Summerlin and Roger Ortmayer at Southern Methodist University (Dallas, TX), D. Ellington's “Sacred Concert” (1965) at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church (New York), and Dave…
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Religion Past and Present
Jealousy of God
(292 words)
[German Version] Divine jealousy is especially evident in Greek mythology (ϕϑόνος ϑεῶν/
phthónos theōn) and is a psychological and anthropomorphic characterization of the gods who are anxious to preserve their privileges. The jealousy relates not only to the gods in their relationships to each other, but, in a narrower sense, primarily to human beings, especially the fortunate and thus arrogant humans. This ultimately leads to ¶ their punishment, for example to the destruction of a kingdom (Xerxes), to pacify the jealousy of the gods. The various interpretatio…
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Religion Past and Present
Jean Paul
(288 words)
[German Version] (Johann Paul Friedrich Richter; Mar 21, 1762, Wunsiedel – Nov 14, 1825, Bayreuth) grew up in an orthodox Lutheran vicarage. He dropped out of his studies of theology in Leipzig and accordingly altered the topics of his extensive notebooks around 1782. Until 1796, he worked for about ten years as a schoolmaster in Upper Franconia. During this period, he advanced as an
author from a late Enlightenment author of satires to a great author of novels and, ultimately, a professional author situated between Classicism and Romanticism (cf. his programmatic
Vorschule der Ästhet…
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Religion Past and Present
Jedin, Hubert
(227 words)
[German Version] (Jun 17, 1900, Großbriesen, Upper Silesia – Jul 16, 1980, Bonn). He was ordained priest in 1924 and became a
Privatdozent in church history in Breslau in 1930. In 1933, he lost his
venia legendi because of his (converted) Jewish mother. From 1933 to 1936, he stayed in Rome, and from 1936 to 1939 he was archivist in Breslau. He emigrated to Rome in 1939, and became professor of medieval and modern church history in Bonn in 1949. His monumental
magnum opus, a history of the Council of Trent, made him one of the best-known and often translated Catholic church his…
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Religion Past and Present
Jefferson, Thomas
(199 words)
[German Version] (Apr 13, 1743, Albemarle County, VA – Jul 4, 1826, Monticello, VA), was the third president of the United States and played an important role in American religious history. He was the author of Virginia's landmark “Statute for Freedom of Religion” of 1786, which set the pattern that the whole United States would follow in guaranteeing nearly complete religious liberty. Jefferson's beliefs became the subject of political controversy when his opponents in the presidential campaign o…
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Religion Past and Present
Jehoshaphat
(332 words)
[German Version] Jehoshaphat, Judean king (868–847 bce), whose story is told in 1 Kgs 15:24; 22:1–38, 41–51; 2 Kgs 3:1–27; 12:19; 1 Chr. 3:10, and 2 Chr. 17:1–21:1. In his time, Judah (see also Tribes of Israel) became heavily dependent on the northern kingdom of Israel (II, 1) so that one can almost speak of a veiled vassal relationship. 1 Kgs 22 is based on a war account in which the king of the northern kingdom is not mentioned by name. 2 Kgs 3 is an account into which the Elisha episode in vv. 9b-…
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Religion Past and Present
Jehovah's Witnesses
(528 words)
[German Version] C.T. Russell began an independent Bible study group in 1870 near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He first published
Zion's Watchtower (later:
The Watchtower) in 1876. His organization was called Zion's Watchtower Tract Society (1884), Jehovah's Witnesses (1931), and The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc. (1956). Its headquarters is located in Brooklyn, New York. Today, Jehovah's Witnesses number 6,429,351 adherents worldwide, ¶ 1,029, 652 of them in North America, and 165,935 in Germany; there are a total of 95,919 congregations. …
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Religion Past and Present
Jehu
(503 words)
[German Version] Jehu, king of Israel (845–818 bce). Jehu founded a dynasty (Kingship in Israel) that ruled over the northern kingdom (Israel: I, II) for barely a century (845–747). According to 2 Kings 9f., Jehu exploited the wounding of King Joram in the battle with the Arameans to sieze power. Spurred on by a prophetic designation (2 Kgs 9:1–6; cf. 1 Kgs 19:16) and the acclamation of the officers of the army, he hurried to Jezreel, killed Joram and King Ahaziah of Judah who happened to be present, a…
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Religion Past and Present
Jellinek, Adolf
(165 words)
[German Version] (Aaron; Jun 26, 1821, Drslowitz – Dec 28, 1893, Vienna), grew up in Moravia and began university studies in Leipzig in 1842. After 1845, he was a preacher in the Jewish congregation there. Jellinek left Saxony in 1857 following a call to Vienna, where he then fulfilled the same function. Dedicated to developing a genuinely Jewish homiletics based on traditional exegetical literature, Jellinek was one of the most influential Jewish pulpiteers in the 19th century. In the still young…
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Religion Past and Present
Jellinghaus, Theodor
(165 words)
[German Version] (Jun 21, 1841, Schlüsselburg – Oct 4, 1913, Berlin), “dogmatician of the Community movement” and the Holiness movement. Jellinghaus went as a missionary to India for the Goßner Mission in 1866, became pastor in Rädnitz and Brandenburg in 1873, and in Gütergotz near Potsdam in 1881. Won over to the Holiness movement by W.R. Smith in Oxford (1874), Jellinghaus founded the first German-language Bible school for the religious education of church members in Gütergotz. He moved it to Li…
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Religion Past and Present
Jena, University
(992 words)
[German Version] After the loss of the Kurkreis with Wittenberg University (Wittenberg, University of) ¶ as a consequence of the Schmalkaldic War, the University of Jena constituted the state university of Ernestine Saxony and its successor states. During the imprisonment of Ernst Friedrich, a school of higher education was established in Jena in 1548. Its first teachers included such important but contrasting figures as V. Strigel, a student of Melanchthon, and the strict Lutheran E. Schnepf (from 1549). The fact that the Ernestin…
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Religion Past and Present
Jenny, Markus
(179 words)
[German Version] (Jun 24, 1924, Stein, Canton of Sankt Gallen – Jan 22, 2001, Effretikon, Canton of Zürich). He studied theology in Basel and Zürich, worked as a pastor in Saas im Prättigau (1950–1956) and Weinfelden (1956–1963). He was chaplain at the Anstalt für Epileptische [Institution for epileptics] in Zürich (1963–1973), then pastor in Ligerz and commissioner for liturgy and hymnology of the Swiss German Reformed Churches until 1989. He worked as lecturer in liturgics and hymnology (Bern, Zürich), collaborated on the Catholic hymnal
Gotteslob (1975) and on the Swiss Refo…
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Religion Past and Present
Jensen, Christian
(149 words)
[German Version] (Jan 20, 1839, Fahretoft – Mar 23, 1900, Breklum), was pastor in Uelvesbüll (1867–1873), then in Breklum. He initiated several projects intended to re-evangelize Schleswig-Holstein, with emphasis on the print media, educational institutions, and holistic medicine and pastoral care. Through the establishment of the “Breklum Mission” (1876) with work in India, later also in Africa and China, and a seminary (1882) to provide for German-speaking emigrant congregations, he opened the w…
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Religion Past and Present
Jephthah
(297 words)
[German Version] According to the account in Judg 10:6–12:6, the Gileadite Jephthah (Heb. יִפְתָּח/
jiptāḥ, “[God] opens”) was one of the charismatic (Charisma: I) tribal heroes (Judges of Israel) in Israel's pre-state era who delivered the people from the control of its enemies in periods of external oppression. Behind the older tradition (Judg 11:1–11*) stands a local conflict between Gileadites and Ammonites: Jephthah, the son of a prostitute, was expelled from the family and settled as the leader of a ban…
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Religion Past and Present
Jeremiah/Book of Jeremiah
(5,272 words)
[German Version] I. Jeremiah and His Times – II. The Book – III. Significance
I. Jeremiah and His Times The only information we have about the prophet (Prophets and prophecy: II) Jeremiah comes from the book that bears his name or sources dependent on it. The book of Jeremiah has much to say about events involving Jeremiah and his inner conflicts, so that we are better informed about him than about any of the other ¶ recorded prophets. But this “biographical” material is also intertwined with concerns and materials of later periods, so that the historicity of much of it is open to doubt. The na…
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Religion Past and Present
Jeremiah II of Constantinople
(160 words)
[German Version] (1536, Anchialos – Sep, 1595, Constantinople), patriarch of Constantinople (1572–1579, 1580–1584, 1587–1595), contributed to the consolidation of Orthodoxy with important decisions: in his correspondence with Tübingen theologians (1573–1581) concerning the
Confessio Augustana Graeca (Augsburg) he had been sent, he rejected their positions in three written responses. In 1583 and 1593, he refused to adopt the calendar reforms of Gregory XIII and a new edition of the Union and effected reconciliation with the Russi…
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Religion Past and Present
Jeremiah, Writings
(455 words)
[German Version] I. Epistle of Jeremiah – II. Paraleipomena Jeremiou
I. Epistle of Jeremiah The Epistle of Jeremiah (‘Επίστολη ᾿Ιερεμίου/
Epístolē Ieremíou, Epistula Jeremiae, Ep Jer) purports to be a copy of a letter sent by the prophet Jeremiah to the exiles in Babylon (Babylonian Exile). The Greek letter, probably composed originally in Hebrew or Aramaic between 330 and 180, is treated by the Septuagint as an independent literary entity; the Vulgate instead integrates it into the book of Baruch as ch. 6. Closely …
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Religion Past and Present
Jeremias, Joachim
(347 words)
[German Version] (Sep 20, 1900, Dresden – Sep 6, 1979, Tübingen). Jeremias earned his Dr.phil. in 1922, his Lic.theol. in 1923, and gained his Habilitation in New Testament at Leipzig in 1925. During his teaching career, he was tutor at the Theological Seminary of the Brethren in Herrnhut (1922; Bohemian and Moravian Brethren: II), lecturer at the Herder Institute in Riga (1924), associate professor and director of the Institutum Judaicum in Berlin (1928), professor at Greifswald (1929) and Göttingen (1935) before becoming
emeritus in 1968. Jeremias was one of the outstanding…
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Religion Past and Present
Jericho
(745 words)
[German Version] I. Tall as-Sulṭān – II. Tulūl Abū ʿl-Alāyiq
I. Tall as-Sulṭān The mound of Tall as-Sulṭān in the Jordan Valley, 11 km north-west of the Dead Sea, is generally identified with Jericho of the Old Testament. The area is irrigated by several springs, and in ancient times Jericho was famous for its plant life, orchards, and gardens. From the 4th century ce, Christian pilgrims left records of their travels to Jericho, searching for details related to biblical accounts. The site has been excavated by Charles Warren (1868), Ernst Sellin, and Carl…
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Religion Past and Present
Jeroboam I
(493 words)
[German Version] Jeroboam I, was the first king Kingship in Israel) of the northern kingdom of Israel (926–907). Appointed bySolomon (I) as overseer of the central Palestinian forced laborers, Jeroboam use his position to plan an assault on Solomon; however, nothing is known concerning its nature and execution (1 Kgs 11:26–28, 40). Jeroboam had to flee to Egypt (Israel and Egypt). After the central and northern tribes (Tribes of Israel) had seceded from Davidic sovereignty, they installed Jeroboam…
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Religion Past and Present
Jeroboam II
(320 words)
[German Version] Jeroboam II, king (Kingship in Israel) of Israel (787–747), was a contemporary of Azariah/Uzziah of Judah. According to 2 Kgs 14:23–29 and the information in Amos, his reign was a last climax of power and prosperity for (northern) Israel (II, 1) made possible by the weakness of Aram-Damascus (Israel and its neighbours in Syria-Palestine) and the pressure on Assyria from Urartu. Jeroboam was able to restore Israel's traditional landed property in the Transjordan and to extend its c…
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Religion Past and Present
Jerome of Prague
(182 words)
[German Version] (after 1370, Prague – May 30, 1416, Constance). A follower of J. Wycliffe and J. Hus, Jerome studied in Prague and Oxford, whence he brought tractates by Wycliffe to Bohemia. As magister, he proposed Wycliffe's theses at the universities of Paris (1405/1406), Cologne and Heidelberg (1406) and was persecuted as a result, as he was in Buda and Vienna (1410), where he absconded from trial by flight. He undertook additional journeys to Jerusalem, Poland and Lithuania. In Prague, he ha…
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Religion Past and Present
Jerome, Saint
(741 words)
[German Version] I. Person – II. Art History
I. Person (c. 347, Stridon – 419/420, Bethlehem). Jerome was from a landowning Christian family. After an excellent education in grammar and rhetoric in Rome, Jerome went to Trier in the mid-360s. There he became acquainted withmonasticism (II) and rejected a secular career. He spent the following years in upper Italy. Probably at the beginning of the 370s, he undertook a pilgrimage to the holy sites in the East. However, an illness forced him to stop in Antioch. After recovering, he set out into the “wilderness of Chalcis.” Jerome stylized ¶ th…
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Religion Past and Present
Jerusalem
(8,314 words)
[German Version] I. Old Testament – II. Judaism – III. New Testament – IV. Early Church – V. Patriarchates – VI. Islam – VII. Religious and Political Situation Today – VIII. Archaeology
I. Old Testament Jerusalem (ירושׁלם/
yerûšālēm, MT
yerûšālayim) was founded c. 1800 bce as a fortified town in the central Palestinian uplands at a strategic point for transportation between northern and southern Palestine. Outside the Bible, the name appears from the 18th century on in the Egyptian execration texts and the Amarna letters (as Akkad.
uruu-ru-sa-lim). It derives from the verb
yrh I…
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Religion Past and Present
Jerusalem, Johann Friedrich Wilhelm
(523 words)
[German Version] (Nov 22, 1709, Osnabrück – Sep 2, 1789, Braunschweig), leading proponent of neology (Enlightenment: II, 4.c). Jerusalem studied philosophy, theology and oriental languages in Leipzig (1727–1730, with Johann Christoph Gottsched, among others), received the M.A. (1731, Wittenberg), undertook a two-year study journey through Holland, and was a private tutor in Göttingen (1734–1737). After several years in England, to which he owed important impulses, and work as a tutor in Hannover (…
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Religion Past and Present
Jerusalem, Liturgy of
(241 words)
[German Version] The pilgrimage diary of Egeria (381–384) and the Armenian lectionary (5th cent.) bear witness to a well-developed liturgical year that was practiced in Jerusalem from the 4th century. The Christians there celebrated, according to the occasion, at the original scenes and would read the relevant texts from Scripture. Egeria also describes a weekly Sunday vigil (at the first cockcrow), which is still observed in many eastern churches. The Jerusalem liturgy therefore became influentia…
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Religion Past and Present
Jerusalemsverein
(149 words)
[German Version] The Jerusalemsverein (Jerusalem Association) was founded in 1852 in Berlin as an association to promote missionary work among Germans, Jews and Muslims in Palestine. In addition to evangelistic activity, missionary diaconal tasks (esp. in the area of education) were of particular importance. Since World War II, cooperation with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan (ELCJ), which had arisen from the work of the Jerusalemsverein in 1959, has been central. A pivotal focus is on t…
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Religion Past and Present
Jerusalem, the Heavenly
(818 words)
[German Version] The notion of a new Jerusalem, an eschatological city of God on Mount Zion is already developed in the Old Testament (Zion Pss; Isa 28:16; 54:11f.; Ezek 40:2; 48:30–35; etc.); it was further nurtured by early Judaism (Qumran;
4 Ezra; etc.). The tendency to separate the heavenly Jerusalem from the earthly one, already apparent in the OT texts, became stronger, especially after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 ce. Thus
2 Bar. 4:2–6 states that the true Jerusalem intended by God is not the visible city; it is instead the preexistent Jerusalem, …
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Religion Past and Present
Jesuati
(159 words)
[German Version] (later:
Clerici apostolici S. Hieronymi), was a community founded around 1355 by Giovanni Colombini (died 1367) and his first associate, Francesco Vincenti. Initially, only laypersons lived together in poverty and penitence, with no fixed rule; they saw their vocation in praising God and in active love for their neighbor. The name derives from the exclamation in prayer, “O Gesù!” In 1367, the Jesuati obtained papal approbation and thereafter established monasteries in central and nort…
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Religion Past and Present
Jesuit Literature
(415 words)
[German Version] Since they were founded, the Jesuits have consistently utilized modern means of communication. P. Canisius was already aware of the power of the written word; he was convinced that only with the pen could people be reached directly, and faith and knowledge be communicated to them. He placed ¶ particular emphasis on the religious instruction of children, which he promoted primarily through his catechisms. Matthäus Rader (1561–1634), one of the most significant teachers in the Jesuit order, was the educator of such outstanding lit…
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Religion Past and Present
Jesuits (Society of Jesus)
(2,385 words)
[German Version] I. Beginnings, Character, Organization – II. History to 1773 – III. History from 1814 to the Present – IV. The Jesuits Today
I. Beginnings, Character, Organization The nucleus of the Society of Jesus (
Societas Jesu) was the circ…
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Religion Past and Present
Jesus and Mary, Congregation of
(196 words)
[German Version] (Congrégation de Jésus et Marie, CJM; also called the Eudist Fathers), was founded in Caen in 1643 by the popular missionary and religious author Jean Eudes (1601–1680; canonized in 1925) for the education and training of the clergy as prescribed by the Council of Trent and for popular missionary activities. As a congregation of secular priests, they are not under vows but promise to obey their superior. They ran diocesan seminaries in Brittany and Normandy, promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart…
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Religion Past and Present
Jesus, Brothers and Sisters of
(13 words)
[German Version] Brothers and Sisters of Jesus
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Religion Past and Present