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
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…
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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 …
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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 …
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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 …
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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 France (
laïcisme) as an aggressively anticlerical concept; originally it proposed absolute separation of the state, secular culture, and the church (esp. the Catholic Church; Church and state), opposing all public influence on the part of the church. Its intellectual roots were in the Enlightenment and especially the French Revolution – although it r…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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 …
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Religion Past and Present
Lamech/Song of Lamech
(8 words)
[German Version] Primordial History
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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 …
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Religion Past and Present