Religion Past and Present
Get access
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
| Help us improve our service |
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
Labadie, Jean de
(465 words)
[German Version] (Feb 13, 1610, Bourg, near Bordeaux – Feb 12, 1674, Altona, near Hamburg). Labadie entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1625; in 1639, after theological studies (1636–1639) at Bordeaux and ordination to the priesthood, he obtained permission to leave the Jesuits and become a secular priest. He founded devotional communities in Paris and southern France, for a time showing some attraction to Jansenism. Soon he was struck by the idea of reforming the church after the model of the earlies…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Labarum
(246 words)
[German Version] (λάβαρον, λάβωρον). According to Eusebius of Caesarea
Vita Const. I 26–31 (cf. II 7; Autopsy), a labarum is a vexillum (military standard) with a Christogram at the top, medallions of the emperor and his sons, and drapery attached to a crossbar. Introduced in the context of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (Oct 28, 312) with the victory over Maxentius, it appears to have originated in the (probably one and only) vision of Constantine the Great, during which he allegedly saw a solar cross …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Labbé (Labbeus), Philippe
(153 words)
[German Version] (Jul 10, 1607, Bourges – Mar 17, 1667, Paris), French Jesuit (1623), theologian, philologist, and editor of sources pertaining to church history. After lecturing in Caen, Bourges, and Paris, Labbé worked mainly as an author. An erudite compiler with many interests (geography, chronology, patristics, Byzantine studies), he wrote more than 80 works and was regarded as one of the leading scholars of his time. His most important publication is the compilation of the acts of the counci…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Labor
(5,199 words)
[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Bible – III. Sociology and Social History – IV. Economics – V. Theology and Social Ethics – VI. Philosophy
I. Religious Studies Labor (or work) is an activity peculiar to human beings; it consists of acting purposefully to affect nature, which represents the raw material for labor. Unlike animals, human beings must deliberately transform nature, for example to produce tools, in order to use it to satisfy their needs. The term
labor has overtones of both necessity and utility, whereas activities that often demand extraordin…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Laborer Priests
(252 words)
[German Version] Between 1941 and 1944, for various reasons (pastoral care for French forced laborers under German occupation, France as a missionary territory, acquaintance with the living conditions of the workers) a few diocesan and regular priests in France sought to establish contact with the working classes, most of whom were alienated from the church. To this end, they deliberately gave up their secure way of life to take jobs as workers, day laborers, etc. From this beginning, there grew t…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Labor Movement
(2,324 words)
[German Version] I. Concept and Structure – II. Aims – III. History
I. Concept and Structure Since the 1840s, the phrase
labor movement has been a commonly accepted collective term for all European and North American self-help movements and self-protection movements pursuing the economic, political, and cultural emancipation of workers. Its organizational forms have included parties, trade unions, associations, and cooperative societies, with sometimes substantial national and regional differences. Ideologically w…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Labyrinth
(700 words)
[German Version] I. Minoan and Mycenaean Religion – II. Symbolism
I. Minoan and Mycenaean Religion The Greek word λαβύρινϑος/
labýrinthos and the presumably cognate λάβρυς/
lábrys, “(double-headed) axe,” come from a non-Greek or pre-Greek language stratum, from which the Greeks borrowed them somewhere in the Aegean-Anatolian region. In Asia Minor the toponym
Labranda in Caria, with its shrine and the archaic cultic image of Zeus wielding a labrys (“Zeus Labraundeus”), points to Crete, where myth identifies the labyrinth at Knossos, designed by …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
La Chaise, François d'Aix de
(253 words)
[German Version] (Aug 25, 1624, Château d'Aix, Département Loire – Jan 20, 1709, Paris), S.J., was the father confessor of King Louis XIV for many years. After attending the Jesuit college in Roanne, La Chaise entered the Jesuit novitiate in Avignon in 1639. In 1668, he assumed the directorship of the college in Grenoble and became provincial of Lyon in 1674. In 1675, Louis XIV appointed him royal councilor and made him his personal father confessor at court, where La Chaise soon obtained the conf…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lachish
(535 words)
[German Version] was an important Canaanite and Israelite city in the Shephelah. Tel Lachish (Tell ed-Duweir) is located near the Lachish valley, a main route leading from the coastal plain to the Hebron hills. In 1929 W. Albright proposed its identification with Lachish and his suggestion is generally accepted today. The derivation of the name is unknown. Lachish was the most important Late Bronze Canaanite city in the southern Shephelah, and three of its kings are mentioned in the Amarna letters…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lachmann, Johann
(168 words)
[German Version] (1491, Heilbronn – 1538/1539, Heilbronn ) was the son of a bell founder. He gained his M.A. in Heidelberg in 1508 before studying law. In 1514, he became pastoral administrator in Heilbronn, ¶ where in 1521 he received the Dr.iur.utr. and took up a pastoral position. From 1524, Lachmann taught Reformation principles. He was a moderating influence during the Peasants' War, mediating between the council and the peasants. Later, he also strove for peaceful solutions with regard to the Anabaptists. In 1525, Lachmann signed the
Syngramma Suevicum (J. Brenz). In subseque…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lacordaire, Jean Baptiste Henri
(304 words)
[German Version] (name in religion: Henri-Dominique; May 5, 1802, Recey-sur-Ource – Nov 21, 1861, Sorèze), OP, preacher. After studying law in Dijon and brief legal practice in Paris, Lacordaire experienced a conversion and entered the seminary at Issy in 1824 (ordained to the priesthood in 1827). During the July Revolution of 1830, together with C. de Montalembert, he joined H. de Lamennais to found the newspaper
L'Avenir with the motto “God and Freedom.” Its ideas were condemned in 1832 in the encyclical
Mirari Vos. Lacordaire submitted, and broke with Lamennais. With his 18…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lactantius, Lucius Caecilius Firmianus
(447 words)
[German Version] (c. 250–325), Christian Latin writer. Lactantius pursued extensive literary and philosophical studies; one of his teachers was Arnobius the Elder. At some time prior to 300, he was summoned to Nicomedia by Diocletian to teach rhetoric. At the outset of persecutions of Christians under Diocletian (303), he resigned from his teaching position and began to write as an apologist for the Christian religion. Because of his polished Latin, he has been called a “Christian Cicero.” Circa 314/315, Constantine brought him to Trier to tutor Crispus. In the treatise
De opificio D…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lacunza y Díaz, Manuel de
(270 words)
[German Version] (Jul 19, 1731, Santiago de Chile – Jun 17, 1801, Imola, Italy). Lacuza joined the Jesuits in 1747 in Santiago, where he preached and taught. In 1767, when the Jesuits were outlawed, he went into exile in Imola (then in the Papal States). There under the pseudonym Juan Josafat Ben-Ezra he composed an extensive work on the second coming of Christ and the conversion of the Jews, in which he espoused a moderate chiliasm (Millenarianism/ Chiliasm). It first appeared in print in 1824, u…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Ladinos
(133 words)
[German Version] 1. Spanish-speaking Indios (Native American Indians); in Mexico and Central America, “mestizos” of white and Indian parentage. 2. In Latin America, also synonymous with “devious, crafty” (
ladino). 3. Jews in the Mediterranean region who speak the Judeo-Spanish language. 4. Obsolete name for Rhaetians. 5. In Guatemala today, all whites or people of mixed ancestry. There is an ethnic conflict between the Ladino minority and the indigenous Maya. Originally the Maya discriminated against the Ladinos as “bastar…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Laestadius, Lars Levi
(249 words)
[German Version] (Jan 10, 1800, Piteå, Sweden – Feb 21, 1861, Pajala). From 1825 to 1848, Laestadius served as pastor in Karesuando, a village in northern Sweden where most of the people spoke Finnish or Northern Sami; from 1826 to 1849, he served as pastor in Pajala. There he began a vigorous campaign against ¶ the widespread alcoholism in Sámpi. He was a strict preacher of repentance, who attacked “whoremongers and drunkards,” but he was also an elegant pulpit orator, employing nuanced verbal imagery. Having experienced a conversion in Pajala, in …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
La Faye, Antoine
(193 words)
[German Version] (1540, Châteaudun – Sep 1615, Geneva [plague]), Reformed theologian. Little is known of his youth and education. La Faye arrived in Geneva in 1561 and became a citizen in 1568. Enjoying the patronage of T. Beza, La Faye's career is characterized by a steady but controversial advancement: lecturer at the Collège, doctor of medicine in Padua (1574), director of the Collège (1575), lecturer in philosophy at the academy, professor of philosophy (1578–1580), professor of theology (1581…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lafitau, Joseph-François
(203 words)
[German Version] (May 31, 1681, Bordeaux – Jul 3, 1746, Bordeaux), Jesuit missionary in Québec. From 1712 to 1717 and from 1727 to 1729, Lafitau worked among the Native American Indians (II, 1; Hurons, Iroquois) in the mission at Sault Saint-Louis. After returning to France in 1717, he published a memoir on his discovery of ginseng in America and in 1724 his
Mœurs des sauvages amériquains comparées aux mœurs des premiers temps, in which he contrasted his observations to those of other ethnographers as well as the missionary reports (
Relations) of the Jesuits. He compared the ethos o…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lagarde, Paul Anton de
(574 words)
[German Version] (to 1854: P.A. Bötticher; Nov 2, 1827, Berlin – Dec 22, 1891, Göttingen), Near ¶ Eastern scholar and cultural philosopher. Lagarde may be considered a classic representative of modern intellectual religiosity (Religiousness among intellectuals); thanks to his great sensitivity to the antagonism between social modernization and purposive-rational conduct of life, he sought through religio-historical research to instigate a national religious renewal of German culture. An unhappy childhood resulted in a labile psychological constitution and a pr…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lagerkvist, Pär
(317 words)
[German Version] (May 23, 1891, Växjö, Sweden – Jul 11, 1974, Stockholm). Lagerkvist grew up with a conflicted relationship to the narrowness and protectiveness of Free Church religiosity. His childhood fear of the numinous laid the groundwork for an oeuvre dominated by the dark side of human existence. His endeavor to survive the acid test of life, to see good triumph over evil, is manifest in the range of his titles:
Ångest (Anguish;1916);
Kaos (Chaos;1919);
Onda sagor (Evil yales;1924);
Det besegrade livet (The triumph over life; 1927);
Bödeln (1933, dramatized 1934; ET: “The H…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lagerlöf, Selma Ottilia Lovisa
(350 words)
[German Version] (Nov 20, 1858, Mårbacka estate, Värmland – Mar 16, 1940, Mårbacka), Swedish author and Nobel laureate (1909). Her very first novel,
Gösta Berlings saga (1891; ET:
The Story of Gösta Berling, 1898), in neo-Romantic style, attracted national and international attention. The initial misestimation of her as a “naïve” author drawing unconsciously on oral tradition soon yielded to the realization that she was employing an advanced, artistically mature, architectonically detailed narrative technique (intertextuality,…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lagrange, Marie-Joseph
(155 words)
[German Version] (Albert-Marie-Henri; Mar 7, 1855, Bourg-en-Bresse – Mar 10, 1938, Saint-Maximin), OP, exegete. Lagrange worked in Jerusalem as a scholar and teacher from 1890 to 1935. There he founded the École pratique d'études bibliques (1890), the
Revue biblique (1892), and the series Études bib-¶ liques (1903). His scholarly oeuvre is impressive, amounting to some 16,000 pages, mostly published in the Études bibliques: commentaries (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Romans, Galatians), introductory studies on the New Testament (canon, textua…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lahusen, Friedrich
(172 words)
[German Version] (Mar 22, 1851, Bremen – Oct 17, 1927, Bremen). After curacies in Rome and at the Berlin cathedral, as well as pastorates in Mettmann, Hamm, and Bremen, in 1899 Lahusen succeeded Ernst Hermann v. Dryander at the Dreifaltigkeitskirche in Berlin. After being named to the High Consistory in 1910, he was appointed general superintendent in 1912. In 1918 Lahusen became Wirklicher Geheimer Oberkonsistorialrat (high privy councilor) and clerical vice-president of the Evangelical High Cons…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Laicism
(1,376 words)
[German Version] I. General Church History – II. Europe – III. Latin America
I. General Church History Laicism (from Gk λαος/
laós, “people”; Laity) originated in 19th-century Fran…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Laicization
(337 words)
[German Version] Laicization means deprivation of the clerical state – by current canon law acquired at ordination to the diaconate. It is regulated by
CIC/1983 ¶ cc. 290–293 and
CCEO cc. 394–398. Once validly received, ordination (Consecration/Ordination/Dedication: I) can never be invalidated (
character indelibilis). Loss of the clerical state by suspension of membership in the clergy and return to the lay state (Laity: III, 1) can result from the penalty of dismissal lawfully imposed or, as a boon, by rescript of the Apostolic See. Th…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Laity
(5,415 words)
[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Church History – III. Dogmatics – IV. Practical Theology – V. North America – VI. Missiology
I. Religious Studies Generally speaking, the term
laity (from Gk λαος/
laós, “people”) denotes adherents of a religious tradition who do not act as religious specialists or function within a defined socio-religious class (Priesthood, Monasticism). The use of the term is therefore inappropriate in religions without religious specialists, for example Islam. In some religions, the laity, who…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lakatos, Imre
(253 words)
[German Version] (1922, Lipschitz, Hungary – Feb 2, 1974, London), mathematician and philosopher of science. He was a member of the Hungarian resistance to the German occupation during World War II. Lakatos pursued a political career until his arrest in 1950, fled to Vienna in 1956 and to Cambridge where he earned a second doctorate under Richard Bevan Braithwaite. He was appointed to a lectureship at the London School of Economics where he taught until his death. In Lakatos's novel account of mat…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lake, Frank
(170 words)
[German Version] (Jun 6, 1914, Aughton, Lancashire – May 10, 1982, Nottingham). After studying medicine at Edinburgh, from 1937 to 1951 Lake worked for the Church Missionary Society as a doctor in India. ¶ Upon returning to England, he trained as a psychiatrist. In the late 1950s, he wove together psychoanalytic (Psychoanalysis) and (revivalistic) theological insights to form what he called “clinical theology.” Its central elements included the idea of a dynamic cycle (Life, Cycle of), drawn from the life of Jesus and his relati…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lakota
(879 words)
[German Version] is a self-designated term for a group of Native American Indians, otherwise known as Teton or western Sioux (“snakes,” a pejorative description of people who have no language). The indigenous Lakota originate from the region of present-day Minnesota, but moved to the Great Plains at the start of the 18th century, where they mainly lived off buffalo hunting after having acquiried horses. In the 19th century the Lakota were considered the “typical” representatives of Indian warriors…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lālibalā.
(517 words)
[German Version] Lālibalā is a famous group of monolithic churches in the Wollo (Lasta) region of Ethiopia (Church architecture: V, 2). The site (formerly called Roha), at an elevation of 2,600 m, was made the capital of the Zagwe Dynasty (c. 1137–1270) during the reign of King Lālibalā (c. 1181–1221). Ethiopian tradition ascribes to him the construction of the eleven churches, each hewn out of a single block of reddish rock (tuff). His
gadl (vita of a saint) recounts that God commissioned Lālibalā to re-create Jerusalem in Ethiopia. The names and configuration of th…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lamarckism
(351 words)
[German Version] Lamarckism is a theory of the evolution of biological organisms that goes back to J.-B. de Lamarck. Around 1800 Lamarck broke with the established notion that biological species represented groups of living creatures unchanged since the dawn of creation. Drawing in part on fossil evidence, he explained graduated similarities between different complex organisms along with structural and functional differences as a consequence of ongoing modification in which species continually mut…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lamarck, Jean Baptiste Antoine Pierre de Monet, Chevalier de
(268 words)
[German Version] (Aug 1, 1744, Bazentin – Dec 18, 1829, Paris), French naturalist. Lamarck was the youngest of eleven children in an impoverished aristocratic family. During voluntary military service, he became a self-taught botanist; later he studied medicine. In 1778 he published a highly regarded work on the flora of France, in which he introduced a new method of identifying plants. In 1793 he was made professor of “insects, worms, and microscopic animals” in the newly created National Museum of Natural History. He introduced the term
invertebrates for this group of fauna and…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lambert, Franz
(411 words)
[German Version] (1487, Avignon – Apr 18, 1530, Frankenberg an der Eder), Reformer in Hessen, author of numerous works in which he demonstrated independence, but repudiated Humanism and finally Lutheranism. After becoming a Franciscan in 1501, he became an itinerant preacher expounding biblical texts. In 1522 he went to Switzerland and discussed theology with Zwingli. Their conversation led him to go to Wittenberg to work at the center of the Reformation. Though initially hesitant, Luther accepted…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lambert of Hersfeld
(136 words)
[German Version] (before 1028 – shortly after 1081). Educated in Bamberg, Lambert entered the Hersfeld monastery in 1058 and in 1081 became abbot of Hasungen, near Kassel. Besides a life of Lullus of Mainz, the founder of Hersfeld, Lambert is noted primarily for his
Annales, a historical work that begins with creation and from 1040 to 1077 becomes a detailed presentation of contemporary history. Stylistically echoing Livy and Sallust, Lambert describes the reigns of Henry III, whom he revered, and Henry IV, whom he virtually hated. He was…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lambeth Conferences
(569 words)
[German Version] Lambeth Conference is the name given to meetings of the bishops who are in communion with the archbishop of Canterbury. The name is derived from Lambeth Palace in London, which is the archbishop's official residence. The first Lambeth ¶ Conference was held in 1867 in order to resolve doctrinal and disciplinary problems which had arisen in different Anglican churches (Anglican Church) around the world, but especially in South Africa. The initiative was taken by the Canadian church, which wanted to establish an internati…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lamb (of God)
(1,219 words)
[German Version] I. New Testament – II. Eastern Liturgy – III. Christian Art
I. New Testament Apart from Luke 10:3 and John 21:15, where it designates the disciples and the community (otherwise
sheep), the word
lamb appears only in christological contexts. Its Old Testamant associations are clear in 1 Cor 5:7, where Paul refers to Christ as “our paschal lamb that has been sacrificed,” whose death – according to the context – sets Christians free for new life, and in Acts 8:32–35, where a quotation from Isa 53:7f. LXX is applie…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lambourne, Robert Alfred
(171 words)
[German Version] (often called Bob; Jun 5, 1917, Edgbaston, Birmingham – Apr 2, 1972, Edgbaston). From 1945 to 1961, Lambourne worked as a general medical practitioner; after additional studies in theology and psychology, including work with Michael Balint (1896–1970), he served from 1964 until his death as lecturer in pastoral studies (Pastoral theology) in the department of theology of the University of Birmingham. He was interested in the salutary impact of the gospel in the broadest sense. Fro…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lambruschini
(517 words)
[German Version]
1. Luigi (baptismal name: Emanuele Nicoló; May 16, 1776, Sestri Levante – May 12, 1854, Rome), Barnabite. Lambruschini was appointed to the Curia in 1814; at the Congress of Vienna, he served as an adviser to E. Consalvi (concordats with France, Bavaria, and Naples). In 1819 be became archbishop of Genoa; from 1826 to 1830 he served as papal nuncio in Paris (opposing H. de Lamennais). In 1831 he was made Cardinal and from 1836 to 1846 served as papal secretary of state. In the 1846 …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lamech/Song of Lamech
(8 words)
[German Version] Primordial History
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lamennais, Hugues Félicité Robert de
(193 words)
[German Version] (or La Mennais; Jun 19, 1782, Saint Malo – Feb 27, 1854, Paris), Catholic priest and theological and political writer. Lamennais, whose father was a ship-owner ennobled by Louis XVI, was ordained priest in 1816 without a theological education. In the spirit of French traditionalism, ¶ as a teacher and writer he initially attacked Gallicanism (France, Theology in). In 1830 he founded the daily
L'Avenir, whose campaign for freedom of belief and conscience soon made it the voice of liberal Catholicism in France. Lamennais's criticism of the inner…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lament
(3,175 words)
[German Version] Lament I. Religious Studies – II. Bible – III. Systematic Theology – IV. Practical Theology – V. Judaism
I. Religious Studies Lament has its roots in human experience; it gives voice to suffering and mourning, in ritual, poetic, or informal form. Its end is not theoretical, like theodicy, but practical: people react to the experience of situations perceived as mentally, physically or socially painful and process these experiences individually or collectively. The prototypical occasion for mournin…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lamentations of Jeremiah, The
(1,218 words)
[German Version] The book of Lamentations is a collection of five elegies on the destruction of Jerusalem: four alphabetic acrostics (Lam 1–4) and one poem with the same number of verses as the Hebrew alphabet (Lam 5). In the Hebrew Bible the book is called אֵיכָה/ʾ
êkāh, “How…,” for the first word in chs. 1, 2, and 4. In the Talmud (
b. B. Bat. 15a) it is called קִינוֹת/
qînôt, “Lamentations,” and ascribed to the prophet Jeremiah to vouch for its canonicity. This tradition may be based on 2 Chron 35:25, which says that Jeremiah sang a lament for Josiah, which is r…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lamentations Rabbah (Rabbati)
(182 words)
[German Version] (
Ekha Rabba[
ti]). An exegetical midrash on the book of Lamentations, divided into over 30 prooemia and five major sections. The verse-by-verse interpretation sometimes includes extensive narratives, especially concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, since Lamentations is read and interpreted in the synagogues on the 9th of the month of Ab (Av), the day on which the destruction of the temple is commemorated. Along with
Bereshit Rabbah ¶ (
Gen.R.),
Lam. Rab. is the oldest exegetical midrash of Palestinian Judaism. The process of its compilation and …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
La Mettrie, Julien Offray de
(345 words)
[German Version] (Nov 23, 1709, Saint-Malo – Nov 11, 1751, Berlin), French physician, philosopher, and an adherent of materialism. La Mettrie studied in Paris and Leiden, worked as a physician in Saint-Malo from 1734 to 1742, where he initially published medical works, and then went to Paris. He took part in the Austrian War of Succession as a military surgeon. In 1745, he anonymously published the
Histoire naturelle de l'âme which elicited reactions from the censors, as did most of La Mettrie's ensuing publications. The already famous/infamous author avoided imp…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lamparter, Eduard
(218 words)
[German Version] (Nov 21, 1860, Geislingen, Württemberg – Feb 24, 1945, Stuttgart), pastor in Stuttgart, president of the Evangelische Arbeitervereine of Württemberg, from 1913 Landtag deputy and from 1919 a delegate to the Landeskirchenversammlung (meeting of regional churches) drafting a constitution for the regional church. In the 1920s, Lamparter became active in the Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus. In 1928 a collection of his essays was published under the title
Evangelische Kirche und Judentum. He demanded legal and social equality for Jews, emphasized the…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lampe, Friedrich Adolf
(283 words)
[German Version] (Feb 18, 1683, Detmold – Dec 8, 1729, Bremen) was the most influential German Reformed theologian of the 18th century. Educated at the academic Gymnasium in Bremen under C. de Hase in the spirit of Reformed Precisism (G. Voetius), Lampe completed his theological studies in Franeker under C. Vitringa, who acquainted him with the chiliastically transformed covenant theology of J. Cocceius. In 1703, he became preacher in Weeze ¶ near Kleve, in 1706 parish priest in Duisburg, and from 1709 parish priest at St. Stephani in Bremen. In 1720, he became pro…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lamy, Jean Baptiste
(186 words)
[German Version] (Oct 11, 1814, Lempedes, France – Feb 13, 1888, Santa Fe, NM). Lamy was ordained in 1838, became an assistant pastor in Chapre, France, in 1838/1839, and then a missionary priest in Ohio and Kentucky (1839–1850). In 1850 he was named vicar apostolic of New Mexico, then bishop (1853–1875), and archbishop of Sante Fe until his retirement (1875–1885). Lamy secured the assistance of the Sisters of Loreto for Catholic schooling (1852), the Sisters of Charity (1856; first hospital and o…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lancaster, Sarah Jane
(210 words)
[German Version] (Jun 3, 1858, Williamstown, Victoria, Australia – Mar 6, 1934, Melbourne) was a Pentecostal evangelist. Lancaster was initially a school ¶ teacher and Methodist, influenced by international holiness literature, particularly reports of the Sunderland revival (1907). Lancaster experienced baptism in the Holy Spirit and healings in 1908, and in 1909 she established the Good News Hall (GNH), Australia's first permanent Pentecostal congregation. Pentecostal leaders (Pentecostalism) such as William Sloan, W…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lance, Holy
(242 words)
[German Version] The Holy Lance is reputed to be the spear with which, according to John 19:34f., a soldier pierced the side of Christ. In the light of Matt 27:54 and the legend of the centurion in charge of the execution detail as the “first convert,” it is also called the Lance of Longinus. It was discovered by the empress Helena together with the cross of Christ (IV) and brought to Constantinople in 614, whence it came to the court of the French king Louis IX in 1241. Another Holy Lance was dis…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lancelot, Claude
(192 words)
[German Version] (1615, Paris – Apr 15, 1695, Quimperlé, Département Finistère, France). Lancelot was one of the men who settled as solitaries near the Parisian Cistercian Abbey of Port-Royal. The group, known as the Messieurs de Port-Royal, included prominent members of the Arnauld family; they were supporters of Jansenism and published works on theology, philosophy, and education. They also devoted themselves to practical instruction in schools they operated. It was in this context that Lancelot…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Landa, Diego de
(194 words)
[German Version] (Nov 12, 1524, Cifuentes, Spain – Apr 29, 1579, Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico), OFM. De Landa, of an aristocratic family, entered the monastery of San Juan de los Reyes in Toldeo. Ordained to the priesthood in 1549, he went to Yucatán, which had just been conquered by Francisco de Montejo. In 1552 he was appointed guardian of the Mission San Antonio de Izamal and in 1561 provincial for San José de Yucatán and Guatemala. On Aug 12, 1562, De Landa carried out an
auto-da-fé in Maní during which Mayan illuminated manuscripts were burned. Accused of rigid inquisitorial me…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Landau, Ezekiel
(158 words)
[German Version] (Oct 8, 1713, Opatow, now Voivodship of Kielce, Poland – Apr 29, 1793, Prague) was the preeminent rabbi of the last decades of the 18th century. He served in Jampol before his election to the chief rabbinate of Prague. Thousands studied in his academy. Landau composed influential novellae on various talmudic tractates (
Tziyun le-nefesh Chaya), sermons (
Derushei ha-Tzlach), and glosses on the Shulchan Aruch (
Dagul me-Revava). His Responsa,
Noda bi-Yehuda (1776/1811), established his reputation as the greatest authority of his time in the field of th…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Land of Israel
(3,019 words)
[German Version] I. Old Testament – II. New Testament – III. Antiquity – IV. Middle Ages and the Modern Period
I. Old Testament
1. Terminology and boundaries The terminology used for the land of Israel (cf. Israel), in the sense of the OT view of the land itself, and the definition of its borders varies greatly. The texts appear in the context of particular literary and theological concepts in which “the land” constitutes a thematic focus. Hebrew has two words for land: (a) אֶרֶץ/
ʾereṣ, denoting the earth as a whole and its individual territories from a geographical and po…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Landownership Rights in the Old Testament.
(561 words)
[German Version] The law of landownership in ancient Israel – regulations governing allocation or acquisition, inheritance, and sale of real property – must be reconstructed in part from narrative and prophetic texts. Hence the historical process by which the clans and tribes of Israel came into possession of their land remains obscure. The description of the distribution of the land by lots in Josh 13ff. and some passages in the prophets (Mic 2:5; Amos 7:17) may reflect a historical process in ea…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lands, Church (in Germany).
(671 words)
[German Version] Land holdings as part of the property of the church can be traced back to the dotations of the Carolingian period. According to the
Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae (775-790), every newly erected church was to be endowed with two hides of land (= 7.6 hectacres); in the 819 ecclesiastical capitulary of Louis the Pious, the dotations were augmented by one so-called imperial hide. The lands were intended to serve the needs of the local church, i.e. its worship and maintenance (church lands) as well as to suppo…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Landstad, Magnus Brostrup
(152 words)
[German Version] (Oct 7, 1802, Måsøy, Finnmark, Norway – Oct 8, 1880, Oslo), Norwegian pastor and hymnodist. In 1852 Landstad was commissioned by the ministry of culture to produce a new hymnal for the Norwegian church. His qualifications for this task were challenged. The culturally sensitive clergyman was strongly committed to nurturing Norway's cultural heritage; in 1853 he published a collection of Norwegian folk hymns,
Landstads kirkesalmebok, ¶ which was officially authorized in 1869. Posterity has recognized the quality of Landstad's work. His artistic ta…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lanfranc
(301 words)
[German Version] (c. 1010, Pavia – May 28, 1089, Canterbury). After studying the
artes liberales in Italy until 1030, Lanfranc taught in Burgundy and Normandy. In 1042 he entered Le Bec, a Benedictine abbey in Normandy, where he served as prior from 1045 to 1063. Anselm of Canterbury began studying at Lanfranc's monastic school in 1059. In 1049/1050, 1067, and 1071, Lanfranc resided at the papal court. In debate with Berengar of Tours over the nature of the Eucharist, he contributed to the …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lang, Albert
(159 words)
[German Version] (Oct 5, 1890, Falkenberg, Upper Palatinate – Jul 23, 1973, Bonn), Catholic theologian. Lang began teaching at Regensburg as an associate professor in 1929; in 1935 he went to Munich as a full professor, and from 1939 to 1958 he taught at Bonn. The focus of his research was the history of apologetics and theological epistemology in the Middle Ages and the early modern period. His textbook
Fundamen-¶ taltheologie, based on traditional Neoscholasticism, drew on insights from immanence apologetics; in its fourth edition (after Vatican II), it no longe…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lang, August
(303 words)
[German Version] (Feb 26, 1867, Huppichteroth, Bergisches Land – Dec 24, 1945, Halle), Reformed theologian and church historian. Lang was born into a peasant family steeped in Bergian Pietism. After studies at Bonn and Berlin, in 1893 he was appointed Reformed preacher in Halle cathedral, and he received his
Habilitation from Halle in 1900. In 1909 the universities of Geneva and Halle awarded him an honorary doctorate, followed by the universities of Debrecen and Sárospatak. In the same year, his university promoted him to titular professor an…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lange
(354 words)
[German Version]
1. Johann Peter (Apr 10, 1802, Sonnborn, near Elberfeld – Jul 8, 1884, Bonn). After studying theology at Bonn from 1822 to 1825, Lange became a Reformed pastor. In 1841 he was appointed professor of dogmatics and church history at Zürich (where he wrote an attack on D. Strauß). From 1854 to 1884 he was professor of systematic theology in Bonn. Lange wrote fundamental works in every theological discipline, including
Das Leben Jesu nach den Evangelien dargestellt (3 vols., 1844–1847; ET:
The Life of the Lord Jesus Christ, 1864), and was active in the life of the churc…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lange, Ernst
(459 words)
[German Version] (Apr 19, 1927, Munich – Jul 3, 1974, Windhaag, Austria). In the German churches of the 20th century, Lange was an ecumenist second only to D. Bonhoeffer. He was known in Germany for his contributions to church reform, homiletics, and the theory of adult church education (Education of ¶ adults). In 1960, together with Alfred Butenuth, he initiated the reform project of the “storefront church” in Berlin-Spandau (1960–1965; 1963–1965 professor of practical theology in Berlin): the church must be reformed as a mission to the world. …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lange, Helene
(207 words)
[German Version] (Apr 9, 1848, Oldenburg – May 13, 1930, Berlin) was a prominent personality in the middle-class women's movement (see also G. Bäumer). Orphaned at an early age, Lange was raised in a Württemberg vicarage. She moved to Berlin in 1871, trained as a teacher, and was appointed director of a teachers' seminary for women in 1876. She initiated the academ-¶ ization of the higher girls' education by introducing curricula for secondary schools (1889) and grammar schools (1893). Her commitment, which led to the founding of the Allgemeiner Deutscher …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lange, Joachim
(298 words)
[German Version] (Oct 26, 1670, Gardelegen, Altmark – May 7, 1744, Halle). After attending school in Osterwieck, Quedlinburg (1687), and Magdeburg (1689), Lange entered the university at Leipzig in the fall of 1689. There he joined A. Francke and the Collegium Philobiblicum and because a private tutor for C. Thomasius. In 1690 he followed Francke to Erfurt and in 1692 to Halle; in 1693 he moved to Berlin and joined the circle around P. Spener, K. v Canstein, and J. Schade. After receiving his master's degree
in absentia from Halle, he was appointed principal in Köslin, Farther Pom…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Langer, Susanne Knauth
(139 words)
[German Version] (Dec 20, 1895, New York – Jul 17, 1985, Old Lyme, CT), philosopher, was influenced by the organic philosophy of A. Whitehead and E. Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic conception centered around the distinction between discursive and presentative symbolization. Langer demonstrated the fruitfulness of this approach in an interpretation of rites and myths, but especially in a universal philosophy of art. From the mid-1950s, Langer developed a foundation for anthropology based on process theory. ¶ Thought was reconstructed as the result of an evolution of em…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Langeveld, Martin Jan
(214 words)
[German Version] (Oct 30, 1905, Haarlem, The Netherlands – Dec 17, 1989, Naarden, The Netherlands), a prominent Dutch educator of the 20th century. From 1937 to 1972, he was professor of the philosophy of education at the University of Utrecht and the founder of the “Utrecht School.” Historically, Langeveld stands at the intersection of a pedagogics oriented on the humanities and a pedagogics oriented on the theory of action. He developed the notion of upbringing in constant consideration of the h…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Langgässer, Elisabeth
(676 words)
[German Version] (Feb 23, 1899, Alzey – Jul 25, 1950, Rheinzabern) was a poet shaped by Catholicism, important especially in the years immediately after World War II. The daughter of a Jewish (later Catholic) architect, she trained as a teacher in Darmstadt. She was dismissed from teaching after the birth of a daughter out of wedlock, who would later become the author Cordelia Edvardson (born Jan 1, 1929). The father was the Jewish constitutional lawyer, Hermann Heller (1891–1933). From 1930, Lang…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Langhans, Ernst Friedrich
(190 words)
[German Version] (May 2, 1829, Wimmis near Thun, Switzerland – Mar 17, 1880, Bern), was pastor at the Waldau sanatorium (near Bern) from 1858 and became associate professor (1871), then full professor (1876) of systematic theology and the history of religion in Bern; he was a cofounder of the Kirchlicher Reformverein (Church Reform Society, 1866). Langhans caused a stir with his profusely documented work
Pietismus und Christenthum im Spiegel der äußeren Mission [Pietism and Christianity in the light of foreign mission; 1864], in which he sharply criticized Pietist/…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lang, Johann
(213 words)
[German Version] (1486/1488, Erfurt – Apr 2, 1548, Erfurt). From 1500, Lang studied in his home town ¶ (B.A. 1503), where he joined the Augustinian Hermits in 1505/1506 and was ordained priest in 1508. With like-minded Luther, he was transferred to Wittenberg in 1551 (M.A. 1512, Bacc. biblicus 1515). From 1512 to 1516, he was professor of ethics. Having been recalled to Erfurt in 1516, Lang became prior and continued his studies of theology (Bacc. sententiarus 1516, Lic. theol. 1517, Dr. theol. 1519). He belonged…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lang, John Dunmore
(179 words)
[German Version] (Aug 25, 1799, Grennock, Inverclyde, Scotland – Aug 8, 1878, Sydney, Australia), Presbyterian minister, politician, educationalist, and propagandist. The first Presbyterian to the mainland of Australia (moving to Sydney in 1823), Lang helped local independent churches adapt to Presbyterian structures and link with the Established Church of Scotland. Evangelical, energetic if troublesome, Lang was responsible for the migration of most of the first generation of Australian Presbyter…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Langland, William
(550 words)
[German Version] (c. 1330 – c. 1390, London?), Middle English poet. The son of an Oxfordshire gentleman, Langland was brought up in the west of England. He spent much of his adult life in humble circumstances in London, as a married clerk in minor orders. His only known writing is the alliterative poem,
Piers Plowman, on which he worked for many years. The 55 surviving manuscripts of the poem show it in three main states: the A version (dated c. 1365–1370), the B version (c. 1370–1377), and the C version (in the 1380s).
Piers Plowman describes a series of visions (10 in the B version), d…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Language
(7,082 words)
[German Version] I. Linguistics and Religious Studies – II. Philosophy – III. Philosophy of Religion – IV. Fundamental Theology – V. Ethics – VI. Practical Theology – VII. Missiology – VIII. Liturgics
I. Linguistics and Religious Studies
1. Linguistics As studied by linguistics (Philology), language is an inventory of audible signs combined ¶ according to specific rules to facilitate interpersonal communication. There is a general distinction between language as a transindividual system of signs (
langue) and its actualization by an individual speaker (
parole). Within …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Language, Liturgical
(7 words)
[German Version] Liturgical Languages
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Languet, Hubert
(185 words)
[German Version] (1518, Vitteaux, France - Sep 30, 1581, Antwerp, Belgium), studied law in Poitiers and earned a doctorate in Padua. He was won over to the Reformation after reading Melanchthon's
Loci communes, whereupon he went to Wittenberg in 1549 to meet the
praeceptor. The latter's recommendation to the councilor of Electoral Saxony, Ulrich von Mordeisen, enabled him to enter the service of August I, Elector of Saxony (until 1577). Diplomatic missions led him, among other places, to Paris and to the imperial court in Vienna. He was …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Laodiceans, Letter to the
(305 words)
[German Version] The origin of the Latin
Epistle to the Laodiceans (
Ep. Lao.), transmitted in numerous biblical manuscripts since the 5th/6th century and later translated back into Greek, remains a puzzle. Widely distributed in the West, it cannot be identified either with the correspondence to the Laodiceans mentioned in Col 4:16b (
contra Lindemann, who speculates that Colossians may have been intended for Laodicea) or with the letter to the Laodiceans rejected in the Muratorian Fragment (ll, 64f.) as a Marcionite counterfeit. The arguments for…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Laos
(823 words)
[German Version] A Southeast Asian state situated between Vietnam, China, Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia, Laos has a population of approx. 5 million (growth rate: 2.6%), of which 58% are Hīnayāna Buddhists of the Theravāda school, 34% adherents of tribal religions (mostly among the mountain tribes), 2% Christians, and 1% Muslims; Confucianism and Taoism are also represented. The population is made up of a total of 70 ethnic groups and tribes; 55% of the inhabitants are Lao Loum (“Lowland Lao”), 27%…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lao Tsu
(773 words)
[German Version] (Lao Zi; Chinese “Old Master”) is the historically unverifiable but traditional and glorified author of an ancient Chinese composition of the same name, the scope of which had not yet either been fixed or sorted or even given a title in the 4th and 3rd centuries bce. It seems probable that the Jixia Academy of the northeastern state of Qi played a decisive role in the editorial consolidation of the text in the 3rd century bce. The title
Tao te Ching first appears on the basis of the rearrangement of the two sections of the book and after the end of the Han Dynasty (206 bce–220 ce). Ot…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
La Peyrère, Isaac de
(186 words)
[German Version] (probably 1596, Bordeaux – Jan 30, 1676, near Paris). Having studied jurisprudence and absorbed the ideas of Calvinism and late French Humanism, La Peyrère was suspected of atheism within the Reformed Church as early as 1626. In 1656, he attempted to evade the acute threat from the Spanish-Flemish Inquisition by converting to Catholicism and joining the order of the Oratorians. His messianic theory divides the history of salvation into three periods: the election of the Jews as th…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Laplace, Pierre Simon
(361 words)
[German Version] (Mar 23, [not 28], 1749, Beaumont-en-Auge, Normandy – Mar 5, 1827, Paris). Laplace briefly studied theology at Caen, until his fascination with mathematics drew him to Paris. Under the influence of J. de R. d'Alembert he turned his attention to problems in analysis and in mathematical astronomy. The brilliance of his prolific papers won him an election to the Academy of Sciences at the age of 24, and to a professorship at the École Militaire. Laplace contributed to the progressive…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lardner, Nathaniel
(178 words)
[German Version] (Jun 6, 1684, Hawkhurst, Kent – Jul 24, 1768, Hawkhurst, Kent). After his formation at a Presbyterian academy in London from 1699 to 1703 and studying in Utrecht and Leiden, Lardner was an independent preacher from 1709, and a private chaplain and tutor from 1713. While officiating as an assistant preacher in London (from 1721), he worked on his main publication, a work of popular enlightenment entitled
The Credibility of the Gospel History (17 vols., 1727–1757), which was based on a series of lectures. The basic notions of historical criticism impart…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Larraín Errázuriz, Manuel
(186 words)
[German Version] (Dec 17, 1900, Santiago de Chile – Jun 22, 1966, Talca), bishop of Talca (1938–1966), chief representative of the Catholic Action in Chile (1950–1962), vice-rector of the Universidad Católica de Chile and, in 1964, president of the CELAM (Latin American Council of Bishops). Larraín joined the reformers at Vatican II and supported the farmers' movements in his diocese and country. ¶ Together with Cardinal R. Silva Henríquez, he initiated the agrarian reform of the church's agricultural properties. He advocated the
democracia cristiana in terms of replacing the …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
La Salle, Jean Baptiste de
(313 words)
[German Version] (Apr 30, 1651, Reims – Apr 7, 1719, Rouen), was a pastor and educator who founded the French primary school system. He was canonized in 1900. The son of an old French aristocratic family, La Salle was ordained to the priesthood in 1678 and appointed cathedral canon in Reims in the same year. He acquired his first impressions of educational practice while working in the institute of the “Sisters of the Infant Jesus” (School Sisters) established by his spiritual mentor Abbé Nicolas …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Läsare
(345 words)
[German Version] (“readers”). The so-called “läsare” go back to the Swedish Herrnhuter revival movement (Bohemian and Moravian Brethren, Revival/Revival Movements). The movement began around 1750 in Västergötland, where the appellation
läsare was first used for edification meetings characterized by diligent Bible readings. The readings attained their greatest significance in Norrland, where they gave rise to a deep and austere piety that manifested itself in frequent “village praying hours” during which laypersons read aloud…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lasaulx, Amalie von
(204 words)
[German Version] (Oct 19, 1815, Koblenz – Jan 28, 1872, Vallendar) joined the order of the Borromeans (Sister Augustine) in Nancy in 1840, trained as a pharmacist, and began working at Aachen Hospital in 1842. She took permanent vows in 1843 and offici-¶ ated as the first mother superior of the St. Johannis Hospital in Bonn from 1849 to 1871, becoming widely known through care of the wounded from the German-Danish War (1864) and the Austro-Prussian War (1866). Lasaulx concerned herself with the theological issues of the time and cultivat…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Las Casas, Bartolomé de
(815 words)
[German Version] (1484, Seville – Jul 18, 1566, Madrid). From 1502 to 1514, Las Casas was a prospector, field chaplain (ordained priest in 1507), and encomendero in Hispaniola (Dominican Republic, Haiti) and Cuba. At Pentecost in 1514 he was converted to a messianic Christianity out of pity and compassion for the Indians (Native American Indians), in whom he saw “scourged Christs.” Appointed Protector de los Indios by Cardinal F. Jiménez de Cisneros in 1516, he led an unsuccessful mission in Hispa…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lascaux Grotto
(263 words)
[German Version] is a long, multi-branched cave located in the vicinity of Montignac (Dordogne, near Périgueux) that was discovered in 1940. Its walls and ceilings are decorated with the most extensive cylce of paintings ever discovered in a prehistoric cave. At first, they were very well preserved, but have suffered greatly from algae. The cave was closed in 1963 and a viewing copy was installed nearby. Almost 1,500 individual depictions have been counted. Animals, especially wild horses, but als…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lasitius, Johann
(249 words)
[German Version] (Jan Lasicki; 1533 or 1534, Lasice – after Jan, 1599). From the lower Polish nobility and with a humanist education, Lasitius joined the Reformed in Poland. As the tutor of the sons of the Polish nobility, he visited the Western European centers of education in Strasbourg, Geneva, Zürich, Basel, Paris, and Heidelberg, traveled to England, Italy, and Bohemia, and maintained contacts with Calvin, T. Beza, and S. Castellio. He suffered from the schisms of his church in Poland (Antitr…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lasker-Schüler, Else
(382 words)
[German Version] (
née Elisabeth Schüler; Feb 11, 1869, Elbertfeld – Jan 22, 1945, Jerusalem). “The greatest lyric poet Germany ever had” (G. Benn) was the daughter of a Jewish banker. In 1894 she married Berthold Lasker, a physician, with whom she moved to Berlin. There through Peter Hille (
Das Peter Hille Buch, 1906) and the Neue Gemeinschaft, founded by Heinrich and Julius Hart, she came into contact with the bohemian world of Berlin. During a second marriage (1903–1912) to Georg Lewin, whom she gave the pseudonym Herwarth Walden – the background of her autobiographical
Mein Herz (1912)…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Laski, Jan
(302 words)
[German Version] (à Lasco; 1499, Łask – Jan 8, 1560, Pińczów). The scion of high Polish nobility, Laski received a broad Humanistic education as a young man. A period of study with Erasmus of Rotterdam in Basel in 1525 left an indelible impression on him. Political circumstances prevented a career in the church hierarchy of Poland. Contacts with Melanchthon in 1537 and A. Hardenberg in 1539 indicated his sympathy for the Reformation, which was recognized in 1542 when he was appointed superintenden…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lassalle, Ferdinand
(290 words)
[German Version] (to 1846: Lassal; Apr 11, 1825, Breslau [Wrocław] – Aug 31, 1864, Geneva, following a duel). On May 23, 1863, Lassalle became president of the first German labor party, the General German Workers' Association, one of the two parties that later formed the Social Democratic Party. He came from a well-to-do merchant family of liberal, assimilated Jews in Breslau. As a student of law and philosophy in Breslau, Berlin, and Paris, he was attracted to the left-wing Hegelians. During the …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lasso, Orlando di
(376 words)
[German Version] (Orlandus Lassus, Orlando de Lassus; 1532 probably at Mons, Spanish Hainaut – Jun 14, 1594, Munich), Franco-Flemish composer. Taken into the service of Ferdinando Gonzaga, viceroy of Sicily, he came to Italy (Mantua, Genoa, Palermo, Naples, and Rome), where in 1553/1554 he was director of music for the Basilica of St. John Lateran. In 1554, however, he returned to his homeland. After a brief stay in England, he worked in Antwerp, where he published his first book of motets. From there he was summoned to Munich in 1556 by Duke Albrecht V of ¶ Bavaria, as a tenor and compose…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Last Judgment
(2,320 words)
[German Version] I. History of Religions – II. Dogmatics – III. Art History
I. History of Religions The Last Judgment is a divine judgment of all humankind that takes place at the end of time (End of the world). Unlike the particular judgment of each individual immediately after death, it is necessarily associated with the idea of universal history, which plays a fundamental role in Zoroastrianism (Zarathustra) as well as in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Here the understanding of reality is shaped by the eon…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Late Antique Religions
(575 words)
[German Version] The “Constantinian turn” in 312 ce, after which Christianity and the church were massively promoted by the state, was not matched by a general decline of pagan (polytheistic) cults in Late Antiquity and the centuries immediately following. The 2nd and 3rd centuries had witnessed new religious developments such as the invasion of Eastern cults, worship of the sun, and the increasing popularity of oracles. Now in the 4th century, despite growing imperial pressure (conflict over the altar…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Late Antiquity
(1,073 words)
[German Version] Ever since C.-L. de Montesquieu and E. Gibbon, Roman history of the 4th and 5th centuries has been viewed primarily as a history of decadence and decline. The centuries preceding the fall of the Roman Empire in the West were interpreted consistently as a period of deterioration that affected architecture, art, and literature as well. In 1764 Johann J. Joachim Winckelmann spoke of a deterioration of sculpture and painting in the period after Commodus, and J. Burckhardt was referring explicitly to architecture, art, and literature when he used such terms as
aging, senilit…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lateran Councils
(2,427 words)
[German Version] The Lateran Councils, which were held in the papal palace in Rome, the Lateran, belong among the so-called “papal councils,” because they were convened and largely defined by the bishop of Rome. In the wake of the Counter-Reformation they were counted as the 9th-12th and the 18th ecumenical councils.
First Lateran Council. Called in June 1122 by Pope Callistus II, this synod, which met Mar 27–28, 1123 and was attended only by Western representatives, set out to continue the Gregorian “reforms,” after the Concordat (Concordats) of …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lateran Treaties
(401 words)
[German Version] The Lateran Treaties were an agreement, signed in the Lateran Palace on Feb 11, 1929, by cardinal secretary of state P. Gasparri and Mussolini, between the Apostolic See and the Kingdom of Italy, comprising a
trattato (treaty) and the Italian concordat. A special financial agreement formed an integral part of the
trattato. The major purpose of the agreement was to resolve the so-called Roman question, which had become urgent since the dissolution of the Papal States – in other words, to clarify the position of the Holy See in the …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Latermann, Johannes
(167 words)
[German Version] (Feb 7, 1620, Gellershau- sen, Coburg – 1662, Austria), studied in Helmstedt (G. Calixtus, K. Horneius). During the 1645 Conference of Thorn, he joined C. Dreier and M. Behm from Königsberg. Latermann represented their concerns consistently and, in a vigorous disagreement with the Lutheran clergy of the city under C. Myslenta, sparked the “Latermann Affair” that culminated in the Syncretistic Controversy. Sponsored by Elector Frederick William I, he became associate professor at t…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Latimer, Hugh
(177 words)
[German Version] (1485, Thurcaston, Leicestershire – Oct 16, 1555, Oxford). The son of a free peasant, Latimer studied theology from 1506 onward at Clare College, Cambridge (B.A. 1510, M.A. 1514). Having initially defended the old faith as a preacher and university lecturer, he joined the Reformation around 1524 under the influence of T. Bilney. Highly esteemed at the court of Henry VIII for a time (appointment as bishop of Worcester in 1535), he fell out of favor from ¶ 1539 during the turmoil surrounding Anne Boleyn; he delivered his most famous sermons under Edward VI. …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Latin
(773 words)
[German Version] When the Christian message expanded beyond the boundaries of Palestine between 50 and 120 ce, it used the language spoken in the eastern part of the Empire, especially by the Jews in Palestine and the Diaspora (II, 1) – Koine Greek. Here there was a Greco-Jewish literature, which included the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint (Bible translations). Under Claudius and Nero, groups of Greek-speaking Christians were already forming in Rome and in Italy; they used Greek texts th…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Latin America
(5,448 words)
[German Version] I. General; Geopolitics – II. Religious Affiliation – III. Christianity
I. General; Geopolitics America, with an area of over 42,000,000 km2, is generally divided into North America, Central America, and South America. Latin America, a substantial part of the continent, comprises the countries originally colonized by Spain, France, and Portugal. The term covers South America and Central America together with Mexico. First used between 1862 and 1867 during the French intervention in Mexico, it was …
Source:
Religion Past and Present