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
Hebbel, Christian Friedrich
(615 words)
[German Version] (Mar 18, 1813, Wesselburen – Dec 13, 1863, Vienna), important post-classical dramatist, also prominent as a lyricist, narrator and critic and valued as a subjectivist diarist (regular diaries beginning in 1835). An autodidact by type, Hebbel at the same time is heavily influenced by the tradition of F. v. Schiller and L. Uhland, and later also of J.W. v. Goethe in lyricism and drama, and of F.W.J. Schelling, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand Solger (1780–1819; “teacher of my youth”) and G.W.F. Hegel in theory and aestheti…
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Religion Past and Present
Hebel, Johann Peter
(915 words)
[German Version] (May 10, 1760, Basel – Sep 22, 1826, Schwetzingen), theologian, teacher, and (world-class) popular writer. Transience – the title of his most important dialect poem (“Die Vergänglichkeit”) – shaped Hebel's world and experience from an early age. In 1761 his father and one-month-old little sister died; as a thirteen-year-old, he witnessed his mother's death from an illness on a return journey from Basel into the Wiesental. Because of a legacy and support, he was able to attend the …
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Religion Past and Present
Hébert, Marcel
(207 words)
[German Version] (Apr 22, 1851, Bar-le-Duc – Feb 12, 1916, Paris). After studying Catholic theology at the St. Sulpice Seminary in Paris, Hébert was ordained priest in 1876. From 1879, he taught at the École Fénelon in Paris and became its director in 1895. Dismissed from office in 1901 on account of his
Souvenirs d'Assise, he left the church and began teaching at the Université Nouvelle in Brussels in 1903. In 1907, he returned to Paris. He devoted himself to social problems, the relationship between the natural sciences and the Bible, and the rel…
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Religion Past and Present
Hebler, Matthias
(140 words)
[German Version] (c. 1525, Carpona, Transylvania – Sep 18, 1571, Sibiu, Transylvania). Hebler studied at Wittenberg from 1546 to 1551 and received his M.A. After ordination by J. Bugenhagen, in 1551 he became a teacher and in 1552 rector in Sibiu. In 1554 he was appointed preacher, in 1555 municipal pastor, and in 1556 superintendent of the Saxon church in Transylvania. In the doctrinal disputes that arose in Transylvania (F. Stancarus, M. Dévai Biró, G. Biandrata [Blandrata], F. Dávid), as a disc…
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Religion Past and Present
Hebrew Christians
(243 words)
[German Version] This movement began in the middle of the 19th century in the course of Evangelical-Protestant Jewish missions – the massive immigration of Jews to Great Britain and North America had awakened the hope for their conversion. In order to overcome cultural and linguistic barriers, converted Jews were supposed to work as missionaries among their fellow Jews. In Europe, Great Britain, and North America many Jewish-Christian prayer communities and congregations were formed (Jewish Wing of the Body of Christ), but their success was limited (Jewish Christians: IV). The Bibl…
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Religion Past and Present
Hebrews
(567 words)
[German Version] The Hebrew lexeme “Hebrews,” documented since the 1st century bce, is presumably related linguistically to a term “ḫab/piru/i” or “ʿpr.w,” which was widespread in the ancient Near East in the 2nd millennium. These texts refer to population groups that found asylum in the country in question either as foreign refugees or sometimes as prisoners of war, or that distanced themselves from the resident society; they hired themselves out for menial service in private or official capacities (esp. …
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Religion Past and Present
Hebrews, Epistle to the
(1,513 words)
[German Version] I. Authorship – II. Date – III. Adressees – IV. Genre and Structure – V. Religio-historical Background – VI. Message Among the letters ascribed to Paul, Hebrews stands out for its artful valuation of the person and work of Jesus Christ and its urgent exhortations to remain faithful. The text is a masterpiece of early Christian homiletics, interweaving imaginative interpretation of Scripture with powerful parenesis. ¶
I. Authorship The text does not name its author. A reference to “our brother Timothy” (Heb 13:23) may have led to the assumpti…
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Religion Past and Present
Hebrews, Gospel of the
(307 words)
[German Version] A
Gospel of the Hebrews is mentioned by Papias (Eus.
Hist. eccl. III 39.17) and Hegesippus (Eus.
Hist. eccl. IV 22.8) and is cited by representatives of the Alexandrian school, Clement (
Stromata, II 9.45; IV 14.96), Origen (
Comm. Jo. II 12;
Hom. Jer. XV 4), and Didymus (
Comm. Ps. 33 [34].1). It is the document of a Jewish Christian community, probably from Egypt. It must be differentiated from both the
Gospel of the
Egyptians and the
Gospel of the Ebionites (Ebionites, Gospel of the). Jerome frequently cites a
Gospel of the Hebrews read by the Nazoreans, a Jewish-Christ…
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Religion Past and Present
Hebron
(459 words)
[German Version] The site of biblical Hebron (Arab. Ǧăbal ar-Rumēda), also called Kiriath-arba (Gen 23:2 etc.), lies west of modern Hebron (Arab. el-Ḫalīl). According to Num 12:22, Hebron was built seven years before the Hyksos city of Zoan. Traditions surrounding Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac are associated with Hebron (Gen 23; 25:9f.; cf. 35:27–29). It is said to have been an Anakite city (Josh 15:13f.), taken by Joshua or Judah (Josh 10:3ff.; cf. Josh 11:21 and Judg 1:10). According to Judg 1:20, h…
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Religion Past and Present
Hecataeus of Abdera
(198 words)
[German Version] The philosopher and historiographer Hecataeus was a contemporary of Alexander the Great and of Ptolemy I (Jos.
Apion. I 183; Ptolemaic Dynasty). In his famous book,
Aegyptiaca, Hecataeus deals with part of Jewish history, as well as Jewish customs, religion and military matters (fragments in Diodoros Siculus XL 3). Josephus cites Hecataeus's essay
On the Jews (
Apion. I 183ff., cf. I 214), although its authenticity is doubted. According to Josephus, in this essay, Hecataeus deals with the relationship of the Jews to Ptolemy I, their fid…
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Religion Past and Present
Heckel
(688 words)
[German Version]
1. Johannes (Nov 24, 1889, Kammerstein, Middle Franconia – Dec 15, 1965, Tübingen), Protestant teacher of constitutional and church law. After service in the church in Munich and later in Berlin, he became a private lecturer in 1923, and supernumerary professor in Berlin in 1926; in 1928, he was a full professor of public law and church law in Bonn, and in Munich from 1934 (with an interruption), until his retirement in 1957. After his initial labors in the history of church law as …
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Religion Past and Present
Hecker, Isaac Thomas
(301 words)
[German Version] (Dec 18, 1819, New York – Dec 22, 1888, New York) was a Catholic priest and the founder of the Congregation of Missionary Priests of St. Paul the Apostle (CSP). Hecker grew up as a Methodist (Methodists), participated as a young man in 1843 in the communal life of the American Transcendentalists (Transcendentalism: II) on Brook Farm (MA), converted to Catholicism in 1844, and was ordained as a Redemptorist to the priesthood. From 1851 to 1857 he organized congregational evangelism…
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Religion Past and Present
Hedderich, Franz Anton
(178 words)
[German Version] (religious name Philipp; Nov 7, 1744, Budenheim, near Mainz – Aug 20, 1808, Düsseldorf), theologian and canonist. Hedderich became a Minorite in 1759. From 1774 to 1794 he was professor of canon law in Bonn; from 1803 on he taught at the Rechtsakademie in Düsseldorf. While he was studying law at Trier, he was decisively influenced by the personality and work of J.N. v. Hontheim. As a canonist, he was one of the most influential theoreticians of Febronianism. Hedderich emphasized t…
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Religion Past and Present
Hedenius, Ingemar
(172 words)
[German Version] (Apr 5, 1908, Stockholm – Apr 30, 1982, Uppsala) was professor of practical philosophy in Uppsala (1947–1973). After his philosophical education with Axel Hägerström (1868–1939) and Adolf Phalén (1884–1931), Hedenius turned to the philosophers G.E. Moore, B. Russell, and Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971) in Cambridge and to logical positivism, according to which philosophy consists of logical analysis based on formal logic and a scientific understanding of reality (Analytic philosophy). In his 1941
Om rätt och moral [Concerning what is right and moral], H…
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Religion Past and Present
Hedinger, Johann Reinhard
(218 words)
[German Version] (Sep 7, 1664, Stuttgart – Dec 28, 1704, Stuttgart), important theologian of early Württemberg Pietism, who translated the theology of P.J. Spener into areas of church praxis, wrote the first Pietist homeletics, catechesis, and poimenics for Württemberg, and published the first hymnal. The Württemberg Confirmation (Protestant) is based on Hedinger's design. His commentary on the Luther Bible (1704) stimulated great discussion and disagreement. During 1687–1694 he was a traveling an…
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Religion Past and Present
Hedio, Kaspar
(170 words)
[German Version] (1494, Ettlingen – Oct 17, 1552, Straßburg [Strasbourg]). After education at Pforzheim, Freiburg, and Basel, Hedio became cathedral preacher in Mainz in 1520; he received his Dr.theol. in 1523. From 1523 to 1550 he served as preacher in the Strasbourg Minster. After 1549 he succeeded M. Bucer as president of the Strasbourg consistory. In 1550, as a result of the Augsburg Interim, he was transferred to the Dominican church. He was of great importance for the reform of the church an…
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Religion Past and Present
Hedonism
(379 words)
[German Version] The word derives from the Greek ἡδονή/
hēdonḗ (“joy,” “pleasure,” “enjoyment”). It appeared in England after 1850 and was first used there in the sense of eudaimonism. Sidgwick (11875) introduced it into philosophy. In current English, hedonism denotes riotous living. In German usage, the word Hedonik first appeared in A. Schopenhauer (
Werke, vol. XI, 62, 1916). It denoted (with no negative connotation) the more cheerful enjoyment of life that was then considered a characteristic of Greek antiquity (26) as an antonym of Asketik. T…
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Religion Past and Present
Hedwig, Saint
(145 words)
[German Version] (Duchess of Silesia; 1174/1178, Andechs – Oct 14, 1243, Trzebnica, Poland), canonized by Clement IV in 1267 because of her charitable works (feast day: Oct 16). She was the daughter of the Count of Andechs-Merania, and was married to Duke Henry I of Silesia (c. 1190). Both took a vow of chastity after 20 years of marriage. Hedwig withdrew to the Cistercian convent in Trzebnica in 1202, which she founded, and led an ascetic life. Her cult was maintained both among the Cistercians a…
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Religion Past and Present
Heerbrand, Jakob
(169 words)
[German Version] (Aug 12, 1521, Giengen/Brenz – May 22, 1600, Tübingen), studied philosophy and theology in Wittenberg (1538–1543, with Luther and Melanchthon, among others), became dean in Tübingen (1543), was removed from office (1548; Augsburg Interim), became pastor and superintendent in Herrenberg and received the Dr.theol. (1551), was professor of theology in Tübingen (1557–1598), while also serving as superintendent after 1561, chancellor of the university (1590–1599), provost and ducal adviser. Heerbrand was a signatory to the
Confessio Virtembergica (1551) and w…
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Religion Past and Present
Heermann, Johann
(506 words)
[German Version] (Oct 11, 1585, Rudna [Ger. Raudten], Poland – Feb 17, 1647, Lezno [Ger. Lissa], Poland), the most prominent Protestant hymnwriter between Luther and P. Gerhardt. The son of a poor furrier and of sickly constitution, Heermann attended schools in Rudna, Wrocław (Breslau), Brzeg (Brieg), and elsewhere, and spent a short time in the house of V. Herberger in Wschowa (Fraustadt) (1602). His studies in Strassburg were short, owing to illness. Officiating as pastor in Köben near Glogow (G…
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Religion Past and Present
Hefele, Karl Joseph
(438 words)
[German Version] ([v. Hefele]; Mar 15, 1809, Hochmühle near Aalen – Jun 5, 1893, Rottenburg), priest in 1833, associate professor (1835) and professor of church history in Tübingen (1840, succeeding his teacher J.A. Möhler). Hefele, along with J.E. Kuhn, led the ultramontane-young church party (Ultramontanism) in the bishopric of Rottenburg who fiercely opposed the Württemberg state church and the “late Enlightenment” clergy. He turned, however, to moderate ultramontanism after 1848. Hefele was a …
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Religion Past and Present
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
(2,088 words)
[German Version] I. Life – II. Works (Aug 27, 1770, Stuttgart – Nov 14, 1831, Berlin)
I. Life Hegel was the eldest of the three children born to the treasury secretary Georg Ludwig Hegel and his wife Maria Magdalena Luise née Fromm. He attended the Stuttgart Gymnasium, which was conducted in the spirit of the Enlightenment, and developed a strong interest in Latin, Greek, and mathematics. From 1788 to 1793 he studied with a ducal scholarship in Tübingen (II) together with F. Hoelderlin and (from 1790) F.W.J. Sc…
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Religion Past and Present
Hegelianism
(872 words)
[German Version] F. Nietzsche diagnoses as Hegelianism in the broad sense a manner of thinking that orients itself to a (reasonable) development. In the narrower sense, Hegelianism refers to the further development of G.W.F. Hegel's philosophy by his disciples, who partly elaborated upon the system he had presented mainly in his lectures and partly adapted it to the needs of individual disciplines: logic (Feuerbach, Rosenkranz), philo-¶ sophical historiography (L. Feuerbach, J.E. Erdmann), and philosophy of law (Gans), art (Hotho), and religion. During the rel…
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Religion Past and Present
Hegelund, Peder Jensen
(166 words)
[German Version] (Jun 9, 1542, Ribe, Denmark – Feb 18, 1614, Ribe), bishop and author. After studies at Copenhagen, Leipzig, and Wittenberg, where he received his master's degree, in 1569 he was appointed rector, in 1580 canon in the cathedral chapter, and in 1588 pastor of the cathedral church in Ribe, where finally in 1595 he became bishop. He was an admirer of P. Melanchthon and, along with his acquaintance N. Hemmingsen, one of the most important representatives of Philippism in Denmark. Train…
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Religion Past and Present
Hegemonius
(181 words)
[German Version] According to a late and doubtful tradition, Hegemonius is the otherwise unknown author of the so-called
Acta Archelai. These
Acta, which were probably written in Greek between 325 and 348 ce and the full text of which is only preserved in a Latin translation from the 4th century, present themselves as an account of the debates between a certain Archelaus, bishop of Carchar (Carrhae/Haran in Osroëne?), and Mani. For several centuries and in various languages, the
Acta occupied a very important place among the patristic and medieval texts directed against M…
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Religion Past and Present
Hegesippus (Saint)
(165 words)
[German Version] (2nd half of the 2nd cent. ce). Probably a Jewish Christian from Palestine or Syria, Hegesippus composed five books of
Hypomnemata or memoirs; the genre (church history? apology?), content, and structure of the work do not emerge clearly from the title and the few extant fragments. Attacking Gnosticism (Gnosis/Gnosticism), he sought to safeguard the “uncorrupted testimony” of the apostolic preaching, which he found preserved in Scripture and through apostolic succession. He also traveled via Corinth …
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Religion Past and Present
Hegius, Alexander
(158 words)
[German Version] (c. 1439/1440, Burgsteinfurt – Dec 1498, Deventer, Netherlands). Hegius studied the
artes liberales in Rostock beginning in 1456. As the director of schools affiliated with the Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life (1469 Wesel, 1474 Emmerich, after 1476 Deventer), Hegius placed pedagogy in the service of Humanism (friendship with R. Agricola from 1479) by teaching a method to approach Greek and Latin which is schooled in the ancient sources ¶ and observes the rules of rhetoric. Hegius exerted a strong influence on 16th-century German and Dutch Huma…
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Religion Past and Present
Heidanus
(271 words)
[German Version] (van der Heyden)
1. Caspar (1530, Mechelen, Belgium – May 7, 1586, Bacharach), Flemish Reformed pastor. As a lay theologian, he worked under the most difficult circumstances in the early years of the rebellion against Spain to constitute the life of the Reformed Church as a pastor in Antwerp (1551–1558 and 1579–1585), in Middelburg (1574–1579), in the refugee congregations in Frankfurt amMain and Frankenthal (1558–1574), and, finally, after 1586 as inspector in Bacharach. He participat…
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Religion Past and Present
Heidegger, Johann Heinrich
(235 words)
[German Version] (Jul 1, 1633, Bäretswil, Switzerland – Jan 18, 1698, Zürich). After studies in Zürich, Marburg (with J. Crocius), and Heidelberg (Dr.theol.), Heidegger was professor of theology in ¶ Steinfurt from 1659 to 1665 and in 1667 became the successor of J.H. Hottinger, his teacher in Zürich. Late Reformed orthodoxy (II, 2.b) in Zürich reached its high point with Heidegger. He represented the early Reformed covenant theology, as further developed by J. Cocceius, which interpreted the biblical tradition from the pers…
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Religion Past and Present
Heidegger, Martin
(971 words)
[German Version] (Sep 26, 1889, Meßkirch – May 26, 1976, Freiburg im Breisgau). The history of 20th-century philosophy is unthinkable without Heidegger. J.-P. Sartre, E. Lévinas, M. Foucault, and J. Derrida were all strongly influenced by him; his students included, among others, H. Arendt, K. Löwith, H. Jonas, L. Strauss, and H.-G. Gadamer, who played a decisive role in the further development of Heidegger's philosophy. Heidegger is the only philosopher of his century who reflected upon Western p…
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Religion Past and Present
Heidelberg Catechism
(1,100 words)
[German Version] I. Composition – II. Theology – III. Impact and Significance
I. Composition Documentary testimony to the composition of the Heidelberg Catechism has not been preserved. In the foreword to the
Opera Theologica of Z. Ursinus (vols. I–III, 1612), Quirinus Reuter reports that Ursinus composed two catechisms at the behest of Elector Frederick II of the Palatinate:
Unam quidem maiorem, pro studiosis adultioribus, et scholis maioribus, alteram minorem, captui populi et puerilis aetatis magis accommodatam (vol. I, 10), i.e. one catechism for theologians and…
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Religion Past and Present
Heidelberg, University of
(493 words)
[German Version] The university founded in 1386 by Rupert I, Elector Palatine, was initially staffed by scholars forced out of Paris and Prague because of ecclesial and national opposition. The founding rector Marsilius of Inghen guided Heidelberg on the path of a moderate
via moderna; from 1452, the
via antiqua shared equal rights. The scholastic manner of instruction (Scholasticism) was supplemented after 1456 with the humanist (Humanism: III), but not profoundly altered. Brought to the Lutheran Reformation in 1558 by Ottheinrich (1556–1559)…
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Religion Past and Present
Heilbrunner, Jakob
(210 words)
[German Version] (also: Hailbronner; Aug 15, 1548, Eberdingen – Jun 11, 1618, Bebenhausen), completed theological studies in Tübingen in 1573 and then, like many in his day, went to Austria and served as a pastor in Vienna, Riegersburg (Moravia), and Sitzendorf on the Schmida. In 1575 he became court preacher in Pfalz-Zweibrücken but lost that position in 1580, when the Count Palatine Johann moved from the Lutheran to the Reformed confession. From 1581 to 1585 Heilbrunner was general superintenden…
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Religion Past and Present
Heiler, Friedrich
(320 words)
[German Version] (Jan 30, 1892, Munich – Apr 28, 1967, Munich), was a scholar of religion, ecumenicist, ¶ preacher, liturgist and pastoral counselor. Brought up a Roman Catholic, Heiler wanted to become a priest, came into contact with modernism early on, studied Near and Far Eastern languages, philosophy, psychology, Catholic theology, history of religions and, privately, Protestant theology in Munich. He earned his Dr.phil. in 1917 and published
Das Gebet (51923, repr. 1969; ET:
Prayer, 1932), based on his doctoral dissertation, then his Habilitation
Die buddhistische Versenk…
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Religion Past and Present
Heimann, Eduard
(377 words)
[German Version] (Jul 11, 1889, Berlin – May 31, 1967, Hamburg). Heimann studied economics in Berlin, Vienna and Heidelberg (1908–1912), was secretary of the first and second Sozialisierungskommission (Socialization commission) (1919 and 1921), became a professor in Hamburg (1925) before emigrating (1933) to become professor at the New School of Social Research (New York). He returned to Hamburg in 1963. Heimann's enduring significance consists in his classic theory of modern social policy. Heimann investigated social policy's effect on the process of ca…
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Religion Past and Present
Heim, Karl
(592 words)
[German Version] (Jan 20, 1874, Frauenzimmern – Aug 30, 1958, Tübingen), born and raised in a pastor's family which was strongly under the influence of Pietism. Heim passed through Württemberg's classical propaedeutic-theological training centers (seminaries at Schönthal and Urach, Tübingen Stift [Tübingen: II], among others). After working as a curate and a lecturer, he became a traveling secretary for the Deutsche Christliche Studentenvereinigung (DCSV; German Christian Student Alliance) in Berl…
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Religion Past and Present
Heine, Heinrich
(619 words)
[German Version] (Dec 13, 1797, Düsseldorf – Feb 17, 1856, Paris). Heine was an author of Jewish extraction who grew up in Düsseldorf and (from 1816) in Hamburg. He studied law and finance at the University of Bonn (1819/1820), in Göttingen (1820–1822), and in Berlin (1822–1823). In 1822, he was accepted in the Verein für Kulturwissenschaft der Juden (Association for the study of Jewish culture); in 1824, he received the Dr.iur., and in 1825 converted to Protestantism. After a stay in Hamburg and travels through Europe, he worked as an independent author in Paris from 1831 onward. Heine is …
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Religion Past and Present
Heinemann, Gustav Walter
(209 words)
[German Version] (Jul 23, 1899, Schwelm – Jul 7, 1976, Essen). A jurist by profession, Heinemann was member of the Council of Brethren of the Confessing Church in the Rhenish church province from 1934 to 1938, co-signatory of the Stuttgart Confession of Guilt in 1945, member of the consistory of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) from 1945 to 1967, and chair of its synod from 1949 to 1955. As a politically thinking and acting Protestant, he first belonged to the Christian Democratic Union (CD…
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Religion Past and Present
Heinemann, Isaak
(178 words)
[German Version] (Jun 5, 1878, Frankfurt am Main – Jul 28, 1957, Jerusalem). After studying classical philology, Isaak Heinemann taught at grammar schools, at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Wrocław (Breslau; 1919–1938), where he was editor of the
Monatsschrift (
MGWJ) from 1919 onward, and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (from 1938). During the Breslau years, the ties between Hellenistic and Jewish philosophy were the main focus of his work, which soon concentrated on Philo, whose writings he copublished in German translation (6 vols., 1909–1938; 7 vols. 21962–1964).
Philo…
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Religion Past and Present
Heiner, Franz
(230 words)
[German Version] (Aug 28, 1849, Atteln – Jul 13, 1919, Buldern), canonist. After being ordained as priest and studying canon law in Rome, he was initially professor of church law in Paderborn (1887–1889), then in Freiburg im Breisgau. Not integrated into the faculty community, he was considered an exponent of ultramontanism. In 1909 he abandoned his teaching post and was the first German to accept a call to be a judge in the newly organized Rota Romana, of which he was a member until 1915. His chi…
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Religion Past and Present
Heinrici, Carl Friedrich Georg
(144 words)
[German Version] (Mar 14, 1844, Karklė (Ger. Karkeln), Lithuania – Sep 29, 1915, Leipzig). ¶ Heinrici became
Privatdozent in Berlin in 1871, adjunct professor, then full professor of New Testament (partly also for Christian archaeology) at Marburg (1873, and 1874 respectively) and in 1892 at Leipzig. Heinrici methodically established the religious and social relationship between the Greco-Hellenistic world and primitive Christianity, which did not succumb to syncretistic assimilation. He identified Hellenistic a…
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Religion Past and Present
Heitmüller, Wilhelm
(191 words)
[German Version] (Aug 3, 1869, Döteberg near Hannover – Jan 29, 1926, Tübingen) belonged to the History of Religions School. He acquired his postdoctoral lecture qualification in Göttingen in 1902, became full professor for the NT in Marburg in 1908, and was awarded professorships in Bonn (1920) and Tübingen (1923). From 1897 to 1917, he edited the
Theologische Rundschau in cooperation with W. Bousset. His main field of interest was the study of NT cult and of its origins in the history of religions, but also the establishment of Christianity by Jesus or Paul. Gerd Lüdemann Bibliography Wor…
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Religion Past and Present
Hekhalot Literature
(500 words)
[German Version] The Hekhalot literature is the corpus of literary texts from Late Antiquity in which a mystical movement in Judaism is obvious for the first time (Mysticism: III). The term Hekhalot, from the Hebrew
hekhal (porch before the Holy of Holies in the temple), denotes the heavenly “palaces” or “halls” that the mystic traverses in order to reach the divine throne. More precisely, the divine throne as the goal of the mystic's heavenly journey (usually situated in the seventh heaven) is the chariot throne (
kisse, later
merkabah) described in Ezek 1 and 10. The adept who un…
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Religion Past and Present
Held, Heinrich
(236 words)
[German Version] (Sep 25, 1897, Saarbrücken – Sep 19, 1957, Düsseldorf). Held became pastor in Wesseling in 1924, in Essen-Rüttenscheid in 1930, superintendent in Essen in 1945,
Oberkirchenrat (High Consistory ¶ member) in 1946, and
Präses (Chair) of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland in 1948. Held was a leading member of the Confessing Church in the Rhineland and in the Old Prussian Union and, as a consequence of his lecturing and his editorship of the
Grüne Briefe [Green letters], was repeatedly imprisoned, first in 1933. After his collaboration in bishop T. Wurm'…
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Religion Past and Present
Helding, Michael
(202 words)
[German Version] (1506, Langenenslingen – Sep 30, 1561, Vienna) studied in Tübingen and, as an M.A. (1528), became headmaster of the cathedral school (1531), cathedral priest (1533), and suffragan bishop (1537) in Mainz, where he was awarded a Dr.theol. in 1543. Helding took part in the religious disputations (I; 1540, 1546, 1557) and in the Council of Trent (I) in 1545/1546, during which he called for systematic reforms in order to prevent a complete secession of the German church. He acted as th…
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Religion Past and Present
Heldring, Otto Gerhard
(148 words)
[German Version] (May 17, 1804, Zevenaar – Jul 11, 1876, Marienbad), a Reformed pastor (Gelderland, Netherlands) who revolutionized the care of persons leading a hazardous life and who became a pop-¶ ular “revival” author. Having come from the Awakening movement (Revival/Revival movements), Heldring attended to the needs of women at risk and of prostitutes, for instance, by founding the Magdalene Asylum in Steenbeck (1848), but also in his correspondence with J.H. Wichern. Concerned with the physical and mental well-being of …
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Religion Past and Present
Helena
(207 words)
[German Version] (ʿΕλένη), mythological figure. In the pre-Grecian period, Helena was venerated as a vegetation goddess in the area around Sparta. The mythical story of her abduction to the underworld and her deliverance by her brothers, the Dioscuri, lies behind the Homeric epic (Homer) of Helen's abduction by a Trojan prince. The Homeric figure of Helena (the unfaithful, most beautiful of the Greek women) had a long literary afterlife (cf. her role in J.W. v. Goethe's
Faust). According to Justinian (
1 Apol. 26), a former prostitute named Helena accompanied Simon Magus in h…
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Religion Past and Present
Helena, Flavia Iulia, Saint
(193 words)
[German Version] (c. 250 – c. 329). Helena was a stable-maid (
stabularia) when she became the concubine of Constantius Chlorus and gave birth to Constantine. In his family politics, the latter publicly assigned her a prominent place as his mother from 324 onward. In 326/327, Helena embarked on a journey to Palestine as the representative of the imperial family. She probably died around the year 329, since coins minted after this date no longer bear her image. She did not attain great significance until aro…
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Religion Past and Present