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
Zauleck, Paul
(89 words)
[German Version] (Mar 12, 1849, Berlin – Jun 3, 1917, Bremen), pastor in Bremen from 1875. Motivated by the Inland Mission, he played a role in transforming the Free church Sunday School to the regional churches’ children’s church. The central place of children’s church in German Protestantism is largely due to him. He was the author of basic textbooks and children’s sermons, as well as cofounder of the periodical
Der Kindergottesdienst and co-author of the
Deutsches Kindergesangbuch. Carsten Berg Bibliography K.H. Voigt,
BBKL XIV, 1998, 359–364 (bibl.).
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Religion Past and Present
Zeal (Divine)
(306 words)
[German Version] The theological concept of YHWH’s zeal (האָנְקִ/
qinʾāh) stands at the center of the struggle to assure that only the biblical God be worshiped (Monotheism and polytheism); it is intimately associated with his holiness (Josh 24:19; Sacred and profane: V). It gives expression – first and foremost in the cult – to God’s intolerant demand for exclusivity, championed against the religion of Baal by the prophetic and Levitical “YHWH alone movement” of the 9th century (2 Kgs 9f.) and reflected…
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Religion Past and Present
Zealots
(1,088 words)
[German Version] The designation “Zealots” (ζηλωταί/
zēlōtaí, from Gk ζηλόω/
zēlóō, “to be zealous, to strive after”) for those Jews who rebelled against Roman rule in Palestine during the 1st century ce and especially during the First Jewish Revolt is encountered in the works of Flavius Josephus (
Bell. II 651; IV 160f.; VII 268–270), whose
Bellum Judaicum (II–VII) and
Antiquitates constitute the most important sources for the Zealot movement and its ideology. The Hebrew designation
qannaʾim (“zealous ones”) is attested, among other places, in
b. Sanh. 82a. Their name goes back …
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Religion Past and Present
Zechariah/Book of Zechariah
(1,553 words)
[German Version]
I. Proto-Zechariah
1. The prophet and his time. The name Zechariah (Heb. זְכַרְיָה/
z ekaryāh, “YHWH has remembered”) is attested several times in the Old Testament: Zech 1:1, 7 names Berechiah, son of Iddo, as father of the prophet (Prophets and prophecy: II). In Ezra 5:1; 6:14, however, he is said to be the son of Iddo. According to Neh 12:16, a man named Zechariah – who can hardly be identified with the prophet – was the head of the priestly family of Iddo at the time of the high priest Joia…
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Religion Past and Present
Zedekiah
(433 words)
[German Version] (וּ)היָּקִדְצִ/
ṣidqiyyāh(
û), “Yah(weh) my righteousness,” name signifying trust both in the Old Testament (1 Kgs 22:11, 24; 2 Chr 18:10, 23; Jer 29:21f.; 36:12; Neh 10:2*) and outside it. The best-know Zedekiah is the last king of Judah (Judah/Judea). Since surviving extrabiblical sources do not mention him by name, everything we can say about him is dependent on the OT texts (2 Kgs 24:8–17, 18–20; 25:1f.; but cf. Jer 52:1–30; 2 Chr 36:10, 11–21). A ¶ biography of sorts can be constructed from 2 Kgs 24f. After the first capture of Jerusalem in 597 bce, Nebuchadnezzar had …
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Religion Past and Present
Zefad
(195 words)
[German Version] (Safed, Sefat; bibl. Heb. תפַצְ/
ṣepat), is a small town in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel which served as a center for Jewish mystics from the 16th century (Land of Israel). Many kabbalists (Kabbalah) assembled in this town, attracted by nearby Meron with the tomb of Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai, the 2nd-century sage to whom the Zohar is attributed. Several main figures lived in Zefad: Rabbi Joseph Karo, the author of
Shulhan Arukh, the major book of law in modern Judaism; Rabbi Moshe Alsheikh, the great sermonist; Rabbi Israel Nagara, the great litur…
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Religion Past and Present
Zeisberger, David
(160 words)
[German Version] (Apr 11, 1721, Zuchtenthal, Moravia – Nov 17, 1808, Goshen, OH), was born to a family of the Unitas Fratrum (Unity of the Brethren). They sought religious refuge in N.L. v. Zinzendorf. After completing his education Zeisberger joined a mission to organize a settlement in Georgia and, in 1740, he joined a body of Moravian colonists in Pennsylvania. From here he left in 1745 to begin service among the Native Americans, extending this by 1772 into Ohio. He identified with the languag…
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Religion Past and Present
Zeitz
(117 words)
[German Version] Zeitz, town in southeastern Saxony-Anhalt on the White Elster with a population of about 30,000. A bishopric suffragan to Magdeburg was established in 967/968; in 1030 it was transferred to Naumburg. Around 1230 the collegiate chapter waived its cathedral rights in favor of the Naumburg cathedral chapter, on which the collegiate provost of Zeitz held a seat. After 1285 Zeitz once more became the permanent residence of the bishops of Naumburg. In 1565 the elector of Saxony became a…
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Religion Past and Present
Zeller
(304 words)
[German Version]
1. Christian Heinrich (Mar 29, 1779, Hohenentringen, near Tübingen – May 28, 1860, Beuggen, near Basel) studied law in Tübingen from 1796 to 1800. From 1801 to 1819, he worked as a private tutor in Augsburg and Sankt Gallen; during this period, he came into contact with the revival movement (Revival/Revival movements). Influenced by the ideas of J.H. Pestalozzi, in 1820 he founded a training institute for charity school teachers in Beuggen Castle near Basel, along with a refuge for p…
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Religion Past and Present
Zeller, Eduard Gottlob
(303 words)
[German Version] (Jan 22, 1814, Kleinbottward [now part of Steinheim an der Murr] – Mar 19, 1908, Stuttgart) began studying philosophy in 1831 at Tübingen, then changed to theology and found in F.C. Baur a teacher who left a deep impression on him. He received his doctorate in 1836, was appointed lecturer in 1840, and in 1847 became an associate professor of theology at Bern. In 1849 he received a call to a full professorship at Marburg. The administration, however, forced him to move to the philosophical faculty. He taught in Heidelberg from 1862 to 1872 and in Berlin from 1872 to 1894. His
Philo…
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Religion Past and Present
Zell, Katharina and Matthäus
(290 words)
[German Version] (Katharina,
née Schütz: 1497/1498, Straßburg [Strasbourg] – Sep 5, 1562, Straßburg; Matthäus: 1477, Kaysersberg – Jan 9, 1548, Straßburg). Matthäus, from 1518 a priest in Straßburg, became the city’s first clergyman to preach the Reformation in 1521; in 1523 he published his
Christliche Verantwortung to justify his actions against ¶ accusations of heresy made by the bishop. He was an eloquent preacher, but as a theologian he stood in the shadow of M. Bucer, W. Capito, and K. Hedio. Late in 1523, he married Katharina Schütz, the d…
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Religion Past and Present
Zen
(1,783 words)
[German Version]
I. China According to the established tradition Chan was brought to China (China, People’s Republic of) as a distinct school of Buddhism by the Indian monk Bodhidharma around the turn of the 6th century ce. However, Chan is a purely Chinese invention that has its roots in the Buddhist
dhyana (Chinese:
Chan) tradition as it developed from the middle of the Nanbeichao period (386–581). As such its practices build on prolonged meditation including a range of methods. All practices lead to
samādhi, or deep self-absorption, a necessary prerequisite for enlightenmen…
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Religion Past and Present
Zenkovsky, Vasily Vasilyevich
(181 words)
[German Version] (Jul 4/17, 1881, Proskurov [today Khmelnytskyi], Ukraine – Aug 5, 1962, Paris), Orthodox philosopher, theologian, psychologist, and journalist. Appointed professor of psychology at the University of Kiev, upon emigrating in 1920 he became professor of philosophy in Belgrade; after 1926 he taught at the Russian Orthodox Institut St. Serge in Paris. His history of Russian philosophy is still the richest and most subtle study of Russian philosophy from the 18th century to 1950, espec…
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Religion Past and Present
Zenobia
(284 words)
[German Version] Zenobia, more fully Septimia Zenobia Bat-Zabbai, regent of the Palmyrene sub-empire (Palmyra) from 267/268 to 272 ce, second wife of Odaenathus, exarch of Palmyra, appointed by Rome as
corrector totius Orientis to secure the eastern border of the Empire against Arab nomads and the Sassanids. After he was assassinated, Zenobia took over the regency for her son Vaballathus Athenodorus, then barely ten, who usurped the special personal military and civil powers of his father. Syria, Mesopotamia, and eastern Anatolia constituted the core of her empire. As
clarissima re…
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Religion Past and Present
Zeno of Verona (Saint)
(151 words)
[German Version] (4th cent. ce). The earliest mention of the patron saint of Verona (church of San Zeno Maggiore), according to local tradition its eighth bishop, is in a letter of uncertain date from Ambrose, bishop of Milan, to Zeno’s successor Syagrius (
Ep. 56[=5].1). There are no further references to his life. His polemic against Arianism (Arius) and paganism suggest a floruit in the second half of the 4th century. An African background deduced from his language and veneration of a Mauritanian saint is disputed. A collection of ser…
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Religion Past and Present
Zeon
(143 words)
[German Version] (Gk τὸ ζέον, “something hot, boiling”), hot water mixed with the consecrated wine immediately before communion in the Byzantine liturgy (VI), to warm it to the temperature of life-giving blood. The ceremony is one of the few that was never based on a practical need. First attested in Constantinople in 582, it was in use even earlier in the Syrian church. Nikolaos Kabasilas saw it as representing the descent of the Holy Spirit on the church. This interpretation (probably secondary) is based on the formula in the
textus receptus of the Divine Liturgy that is recited wh…
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Religion Past and Present
Zephaniah, Apocalypse of
(240 words)
[German Version] A prophecy or apocalypse of Zephaniah (Sophonias) is mentioned in ancient and medieval lists of the Old Testament Apocrypha. A Greek quotation is preserved in Clement of Alexandria’s
Stromata (V 11.77); a Coptic text is also preserved in two fragmentary 5th-century manuscripts, one Sahidic, the other Akhmimic. The extant manuscript evidence is insufficient to determine with certainty whether we are dealing with portions of a single work or several works composed under the same name (Diebner, 1158). The Akhmi…
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Religion Past and Present
Zephaniah/Book of Zephaniah
(793 words)
[German Version] The book of Zephaniah (היָנְפַצְ, “Yahweh has concealed” or “protected”), named after the prophet, is the ninth in the collection of the 12 prophets (Prophetic books). Its final redaction links it closely with the preceding writings of the prophets Nahum (Nahum/Book of Nahum) and Habakkuk (Habakkuk/Book of Habakkuk), with which it also shares central themes. In its final canonical form, the book of Zephaniah shows numerous later additions from the exilic and post-exilic period, the precise extent of which is however still discussed by scholars. ¶ The late title ide…
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Religion Past and Present
Zephyrin, Saint
(200 words)
[German Version] Zephyrin, Saint, bishop of Rome 198–217, 14th name in the earliest Roman episcopal list. The
Liber pontificalis states that he issued directives regarding the eucharistic liturgy and the ordination of clergy. Zephyrin is a controversial figure on account of his theology, which tended toward modalism. Hippolytus of Rome calls him a “simple man without education,” who (influenced by his colleague and successor Callistus I) stated his creed: “I know that there is one God, Jesus Christ; nor except him do I know any other that is begotten and amenable to suffering” (Hipp.
Hae…
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Religion Past and Present
Zepper, Wilhelm
(103 words)
[German Version] (Apr 2, 1550, Herborn – Aug 20, 1607, Herborn), Reformed theologian, pastor in Herborn, appointed court chaplain in Dillenburg in 1582 and professor in Herborn in 1599. Influenced theologically by C. Olevian, Zepper participated in the restructuring of the church and school system in Nassau. In his most important work,
De politia ecclesiastica (1595, 21607), he systematized Reformed ecclesiastical law by basing and elucidating the life of the church and its ministerial offices on biblical principles. Matthias Freudenberg Bibliography J.R. Weerda, “Wilhelm Ze…
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Religion Past and Present