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
Löhe, Wilhelm
(339 words)
[German Version] (Feb 21, 1808, Fürth – Jan 2, 1872, Neuendettelsau), studied in Erlangen and Berlin and, after a few pastorates in Upper and Central Franconia, was village pastor of Neuendettelsau for almost 35 years. He was strongly influenced by the Awakening movement (Revival/Revival Movements: I, 7), especially by K. v. Raumer and C. Krafft. The transition from the Awakening to confessional Lutheranism is linked to his name in particular. He is numbered one of the most important proponents of…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lohmann, Theodor Christian
(217 words)
[German Version] (Oct 18, 1831, Winsen an der Aller – Aug 31, 1905, Tabarz, Thuringia) was a lawyer, an administrative civil servant, the holder of an honorary doctorate in theology (1901), and an important Protestant social reformer in state social policy and the Inland Mission in Germany. From 1871, Lohmann was a consultant on industrial labor for the Prussian ministry of commerce and proposed the concept of a “labor policy of reconciliation.” In ¶ 1880, Lohmann became O. v. Bismarck's most important collaborator in the imperial interior ministry in the development …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lohmeyer, Ernst
(307 words)
[German Version] (Jul 8, 1890, Dorsten, Kreis Recklinghausen – Sep 19, 1946, Fünfeichen, near Neubrandenburg). After studying Protestant theology and philosophy at Tübingen, Leipzig, and Berlin, Lohmeyer became a lecturer in NT at Heidelberg in 1918; from 1920 to 1935 he was professor of NT at Breslau (Wrocław). There he cultivated scholarly interchange with Jewish professors (including Richard Koebner and Richard Hönigswald), which he maintained after 1933. In 1935 these contacts and his ties to …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Loisy, Alfred
(328 words)
[German Version] (Feb 28, 1857, Ambrières, Marne – Jun 1, 1940, Ceffonds, Haute-Marne), biblical scholar and philosopher of religion. Following seminary studies at Châlons-sur-Marne from 1874 to 1879, he was ordained to the priesthood; at the urging of L. Duchesne he went to the Institut Catholique in Paris in 1881 as instructor in Hebrew, Assyriology, and exegesis. He also pursued further studies, including work with E. Renan at the Collège de France. After 1899 Loisy devoted himself to the great project of a critical history of the Bible. After the encyclical
Providentissimus Deus (1…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lollards
(399 words)
[German Version] (Wyclif[f]ites), adherents of the teachings of J. Wycliffe, were persecuted as heretics in England by both the church and the state until 1559. Spread beyond Oxford, initially by Wycliffe himself and later by his students, Wycliffite ideas were evident from 1382 in London, Leicester, Bristol, and elsewhere. This led to a tightening of the heresy laws (esp. stricter controlling of teachers of theology and priests who preached out-¶ side their parishes; a penalty for possessing the English Bible and religious literature in the vernacular) and to ini…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lo (Loo, Lohe, vom Lohe), Peter
(177 words)
[German Version] (Petrus; 1530, Elberfeld – Sep 13, 1581, Elberfeld). The son of the teacher Johannes Lo, he was chaplain and a Reformation preacher in Elberfeld after 1552, was banished in 1555, and from 1556 to 1558 served as curate in Mengeringhausen, Waldeck, where he authored a Lutheran essay on the Eucharist. Lo then assumed a wide variety of tasks as adviser to the counts of Waldeck (from Beyenburg and Elberfeld). In 1565, after temporary ¶ arrest, he was commissioned by the duke of Kleve to effect the conversion of imprisoned Anabaptists in the district of Blank…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lombards
(417 words)
[German Version] The Lombards, a Germanic people, are first mentioned in 5 ce in connection with the advance of Tiberius along the lower Elbe (Velleius Paterculus II 106.2). Long untouched by Christianity, in the 2nd century they began repeated forays into the central Danube region. A series of victories under King Audoin (c. 546–560) brought them to Pannnonia and in 568 under Audoin's son Alboin (c. 560–572) to Italy (II, 3.a) – after a coalition of Lombards and Avars had crushed the Gepidae in 567. Within…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
London Missionary Society
(369 words)
[German Version] (LMS) was founded in London in September 1795 under the simple title “The Missionary Society.” Though inspired by the example of the Baptist Missionary Society (1792), the Missionary Society was to unite all Evangelical Christians in the missionary cause. The Society's early supporters and missionaries included Presbyterians, Anglicans (Anglican Church), as well as Congregationalists (Congregationalism). The Society's “Fundamental Principle” (1796) defined its purpose as the propa…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
London, University of
(268 words)
[German Version] In 1826 the Scottish poet Thomas Campbell, the progressive politicians Henry Brougham and Joseph Hume, as well as philosopher James Mill founded University College, London, to provide a university education for men who were excluded, on religious grounds, from studying at Oxford and Cambridge universities. Dismissed by its critics as “the godless college in Gower Street,” it was joined two years later by an Anglican rival, King's College. In 1836, the government established the Un…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lonergan, Bernard
(361 words)
[German Version] (Dec 17, 1904, Buckingham, Québec – Nov 26, 1984, Pickering, Ontario), SJ, Canadian theologian. Lonergan studied philosophy in Heythrop (England) and theology in Rome. He taught dogmatic theology in Montreal and Toronto (1940–1953), at the Gregoriana in Rome (1953–1965), at Harvard University (1971/1972), and at Boston College (1975–1983). His thought, which was oriented toward Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas and marked by knowledge of the natural sciences, was devoted to the specula…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Loofs, Friedrich Armin
(473 words)
[German Version] (Jun 19, 1858, Hildesheim – Jan 13, 1928, Halle an der Saale), Protestant church historian, historian of dogma, and patrologist. He was the son of a conservative Lutheran pastor. As a student (1877–1882 in Leipzig, Tübingen, and Göttingen), he belonged to the Leipzig circle of students around A. v. Harnack, and in Göttingen he was heavily influenced by A. Ritschl. He gained his
Habilitation in Leipzig in 1882, became assistant professor there in 1886, and went to Halle as professor extraordinarius in 1887. Already professor of church history …
Source:
Religion Past and Present
López, Gregor
(164 words)
[German Version] (Jul 4, 1542, Madrid, Spain – Jul 20, 1596, Santa Fe, Mexico), a hermit. After studying as an autodidact and becoming engrossed by the mystical trends of the time, López, who was apparently from the Spanish nobility, left the court in Madrid and lived as a hermit in various places in Spain. After a vision in the monastery of Guadalupe, he traveled to Mexico where he lived as a strict hermit, first in Zacatecas, then in Huasteca, Taxco, Mexico City, and Santa Fe, and wrote many (mostly unedited) treatises on mysticism and folk medicine. Fernando Domínguez Reboiras Bibliography…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lorber Society
(321 words)
[German Version] The Lorber Society (Lorber- Gesellschaft) was established in Bietigheim (Württemberg) in 1949. It succeeded the Neusalem Gesellschaft, which was founded in 1924 and banned in 1937. Its objective is to preserve the original text of the revelations received by the musician Jakob Lorber (1800–1864) from Graz, Austria, and to publish them worldwide (known by the name
Neuoffenbarung [new revelation]). From 1840, Lorber, the “messenger of God,” received extensive messages (some 10,000 printed pages) dictated
verbatim by an “inner voice”; they largely claim to…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lord/Lady of the Animals
(380 words)
[German Version] This technical expression (also: Master/Mistress of the Animals; borrowed from Hom.
Il. 21.470 πóτνια ϑηρων/
pótnia thēr ο
n, “Mistress of the Animals,” as an epithet for Artemis); in the discussion in classics, it primarily denotes an iconographic type: a deity (flanked by two animals) was employed in older theories of religion as a general term for quite varied types of spirits, gods, and other superhuman beings who were related in some fashion to animals (esp. prey). It denotes both (male, femal…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Loreto
(355 words)
[German Version] is a significant Marian pilgrimage site near Ancona (central Italy). According to legend, the sanctuary there (“Santa Casa”), a simple rectangular wall with no foundation surrounded by a magnificent hall church (1468–1587) and clad with marble (1513–1538), probably following plans by D. Bramante, is Mary's place of birth in Nazareth, the house in which the annunciation of the immaculate conception took place, and in which Jesus grew up. After the Muslim conquest of Akko in 1291, a…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Loreto, Sisters of
(284 words)
[German Version] 1. Sisters of Loretto at the Foot of the Cross, founded in 1812 in Hardin's Creek near Louisville (KY, USA) by Charles Nerinckx (1761–1824) for the education of the youth. It was the first female congregation in the United States that originated without the assistance of a European community. The sisters were active in the China mission from 1923 to 1951. Today, there are about 600 sisters (as of 1995) in the United States and Latin America (motherhouse: Nerinx, KY). 2. Loreto Sisters (Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary), one of the five branches of the Ins…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lorichius, Jodocus
(185 words)
[German Version] (Lurkäs; 1540, Trarbach/Mosel – Sep 29, 1612, Freiburg im Breisgau), began his studies in Freiburg in 1562 and received his master's degree in 1566. From 1568, he studied theology, earned his doctorate in 1574, and became professor in 1575. Lorichius participated in the revision of the statutes of the faculty of theology and of the university of Freiburg (1578/1586, 1581/1583). He was dean of the faculty of theology and rector of the university several times. His lectures,
Lectiones de casibus conscientiae (1595–1598), and his principal work,
Thesaurus novus utrius…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lorrain, Claude
(194 words)
[German Version] (actually Claude Gellée; 1600, Champagne near Mirecourt, France – Nov 23, 1682, Rome, Italy), a French painter, illustrator, and engraver, was a student of Agostino Tassi (1565–1644) in Rome in 1619. In 1627, he settled there permanently and worked for Pope Urban VIII and the Roman aristocracy, among others. Together with Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), he founded the French classical style and devoted himself to “ideal landscape painting.” His classically strict composition was acco…
Source:
Religion Past and Present
Lorraine
(860 words)
[German Version] (eastern France). Three territorial designations – Austrasia, Lotharingia, and Lorraine (Ger. Lothringen) – characterize the historical development of this border region between France and the German Empire. At the beginning of the 6th century, a new kingdom (Austrasia) arose from the Roman province of Belgica I that extended, over the course of three centuries, from Reims to Thuringia. The later Lorraine was surrounded by three political powers: Burgundy, Alemania, and Champagne.…
Source:
Religion Past and Present