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
Soto, Domingo de
(189 words)
[German Version] (1495, Segóvia – Nov 15, 1560, Salamanca), a Dominican, was one of the most important masters of the “school of Salamanca” and among the most important representatives of late Scholasticism in Spain. After studying in Alcalá and Paris, where he heard the lectures of Francis of Vitoria, he became a professor at the University of Salamanca. He was a theological adviser to Emperor Charles V and represented the Dominican order at the Council of Trent. He defended B. de Las Casas in th…
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Religion Past and Present
Soto, Pedro de
(169 words)
[German Version] (c. 1495, Alcalá – Apr 20, 1563, Trent), Catholic controversialist. He joined the Dominicans in 1518 and supported the reform of his order. In 1542 he was appointed confessor to Charles V, an office from which he resigned in 1548 because he thought the imperial court was not attacking the Reformation vigorously enough. He played a role in founding the University of Dillingen, where he lectured in theology from 1549 to 1555. In 1555 he accepted a posting to England but remained onl…
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Religion Past and Present
Soubirous, Bernadette, Saint
(179 words)
[German Version] (baptized Marie- Bernarde; religious name: Marie-Bernard; Jan 7, 1844, Lourdes – Apr 16, 1879, Nevers), joined the Sisters of Charity of Nevers as a novice in 1866 but did not take ¶ permanent vows until 1878. Bernadette was born to an impoverished family and suffered from asthma, cholera, and tuberculosis of the bone. Between Feb 11 and Jul 16 of 1858, she experienced 18 visions in a grotto beside the Gave near Lourdes, encountering a white “something” (
aquerò), then a luminous “small young lady” (
uo pétito demizéla), which she experienced as an apparition of the …
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Religion Past and Present
Soul
(8,968 words)
[German Version]
I. Religious Studies
1. Phenomenology Western, Christian connotations of the concept of the soul, imposed on the religio-historical evidence by outside studies, must be generally excluded if the soul is understood as the principle of manifestations of life that are perceptible (or culturally considered to be perceptible), although they are rarely categorized under a common umbrella term. It is therefore reasonable to speak of a multiplicity of souls – for example four among the Ob-Ugrians (Hasenfratz,
Einführung, 38–41), five among the Proto-Germanic peoples (
ib…
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Religion Past and Present
Soul Bird
(169 words)
[German Version] The fugitive soul is represented pictorially in many forms. Late, principally Roman sarcophagi depict Prometheus (Culture hero) forming a human being as a statuette, to which Athena adds a butterfly (Gk ψυχή/
psychḗ ). Frequently the soul is represented as a bird. The soul bird itself comes from ancient Egypt. In the earliest period, a bird resembling a stork, later a falcon, was considered the embodiment of divine powers called
ba. Probably on account of a later shift in meaning, this term was already translated by Horapollon as
psychḗ or “soul.” In the Old Kingdom…
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Religion Past and Present
Soul, Sleep of the
(275 words)
[German Version] According to Augustine of Hippo (
De haeresibus 83; MPL 42, 46), the notion of a sleep or death of the soul was already current among the “Arabs” in the time of Origen. This means that souls in the “intermediate sate” share the fate of their mortal bodies, rising to life again with them only on the Last Day. This idea, with various rationales, was later advocated by Pope John XXII, the Renaissance savant P. Pomponazzi, a few Anabaptist groups, A. v. Karlstadt, and Luther. The arguments f…
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Religion Past and Present
South Africa
(1,920 words)
[German Version]
I. General South Africa, located at the southern tip of the African continent (Africa), extends across around 1,220,000 km2. In the new South Africa there are nine provinces: Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, North-West, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, and Western Cape. South Africa’s population is estimated to be about 42 million (75.2% Black, 13.6% White, 8.6% Colored, and 2.6% Indian). Some 60% of Whites are of Afrikaner descent and most of the rest are of British descent. Th…
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Religion Past and Present
South African Missions
(362 words)
[German Version] Roman Catholic missionaries entered South Africa during the 16th century. The first serious Protestant missionaries were Moravian Brethren (Bohemian and Moravian Brethren: II,4) who arrived in 1792. London Missionary Society missionaries followed in 1799. The British annexation of the Cape in 1806 led to conflicts between missionaries like J.T. van der Kemp and J. Philip. The British expelled Roman Catholic missionaries in 1806, only allowing them officially to return in 1837. The…
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Religion Past and Present
Southcott, Johanna
(177 words)
[German Version] (April 1750 [baptized Jun 6, 1750, Devonshire] – Dec 27, 1814, London), a self-described prophet, gathered a considerable following in the early 19th century. Coming from a farming family, in 1792 she joined the Methodists, but two years later broke with them after she began to issue prophecies. Her first tract, “The Strange Effects of Faith” (1801), described her expectation of a speedy end of the age and her own role in the Last Days, influenced by Richard Brothers (1757–1824), …
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Religion Past and Present
South-East Asia
(1,659 words)
[German Version] comprises the modern continental countries Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Singapore, together with the island states of Indonesia, Brunei, East Timor, and the Philippines. The territory of Malaysia comprises both continental and insular regions (see the map at Asia). In the year 2000, the population was about 522 million; 27.2% were Buddhists, 2% Hindus, 26.8% Muslims, 21.4% Christians (14.7% Catholics), and 22.6% other. South-East Asia is extraordinarily varied – ethnically, linguistically, culturally, and religiously.…
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Religion Past and Present
Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)
(359 words)
[German Version] is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States and the largest Baptist denomination (Baptists: II) in the world, claiming some 17 million members in over 40,000 churches. The convention began in 1845 as a result of debates over slavery between Baptists North and South, specifically related to the appointment of slaveholding missionaries. Southerners pledged to evangelize the world and supported the Confederacy. After the American Civil War, the denomination was rebuil…
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Religion Past and Present
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
(152 words)
[German Version] In 1957, M.L. King Jr. and other black ministers organized SCLC to attack racial disfranchisement and segregation in the southern United States (Civil rights, Discrimination). Except for a platform for King’s oratory, SCLC was fairly ineffective in its early years. Other civil rights organizations sustained legal challenges to
de iure segregation, launched the sit-in movement to contest segregation at restaurants, lunch counters, and theaters, and staged freedom rides to test federal orders to desegregate interstate transportati…
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Religion Past and Present
Souverain, Jacques
(279 words)
[German Version] (probably died in England in 1698). Not until years after his death was Souverain identified as the author of
Le Platonisme dévoilé, ou Essai touchant le verbe Platonicien, published by the Unitarian S. Crell in 1700, supposedly in Cologne but in fact in Amsterdam. Souverain, probably from Languedoc, was removed from his office as a Reformed preacher on grounds of heresy shortly before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (Huguenots: I, 1), whereupon he moved to the Netherlands. When he offended the Dutch …
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Religion Past and Present
Sovereignty
(970 words)
[German Version] The term
sovereignty – as defined by J. Bodin after antique and medieval precursors – does not denote a legal title but a social reality, the reality of an effective social power to preserve external and internal peace in the territory over which it holds sway, a “commonwealth.” The term itself implies its peculiar mode of operation: recognition of its bearer as possessing the coercive power (
vis) necessary to assure sufficient compliance internally with the laws it issues, to make appointments to office and vest them with authority, and also to…
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Religion Past and Present
Soviet System
(540 words)
[German Version]
Theory. Soviets (councils) are formed through equal, free, but not necessarily secret ballots (Elections) by an electorate organized by factory or military unit, and in part also by residential district. They are broadly responsible for economic, political, and legal matters. The concentration of all power in these soviets eliminates separation of powers. The elected members of these councils, whose discussions and decisions are ongoing and always public, are subject to an imperat…
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Religion Past and Present
Soviet Union
(736 words)
[German Version]
I. General The Soviet Union (officially Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR) was born out of V. Lenin’s so-called October Revolution (Nov 7/8, 1917); it lasted until Dec 31, 1991. Its area of 22.4 million km2 made it the largest country in the world; at the end, it comprised 15 national republics. Its 1989 population of 290.7 million included 90 national groups, 40 ethnic groups, and hundreds of smaller population groups. In 1989 the 145.1 million Russians constituted 50.02% of the total population, the 44.2 …
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Religion Past and Present
Soyo
(293 words)
[German Version] The modern port of Soyo, on the south bank of the Zaire estuary, is flourishing economically because of coastal petroleum reserves. It has the same location as earlier settlements – the city of Santo Antonio do Zaire and the port of Mpinda – from which African slaves were shipped to Brazil for several centuries. Soyo was also a coastal province of the famous ancient kingdom of Kongo in the 15th and 16th centuries and an important part of its history. After the Battle of Ambuila in…
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Religion Past and Present
Sozialdienst katholischer Frauen (SKF)
(291 words)
[German Version] founded in 1899 as the Verein vom Guten Hirten by Agnes Neuhaus (1854–1944). Its mission was and still is to help women, girls, and young children in situations of social endangerment. Today the SKF is a Catholic women’s professional association engaged in social work in several areas: aiding children and young people, women and families in situations of particular strain, and endangered women and families; caring for the mentally ill and exercising guardianship under the guardia…
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Religion Past and Present
Sozialdienst katholischer Männer (SKM)
(110 words)
[German Version] founded in Essen in 1912 as the Katholischer Männer-Fürsorge-Verein and renamed Sozialdienst Katholischer Männer (SKM) in 1962. In 1991 it was given the official name SKM – Katholischer Verband für soziale Dienste in Deutschland e.V., with headquarters in Düsseldorf. The SKM is an affiliate of the Deutscher Caritasverband (Caritas); by its constitution, it is to assist people in need to find help and to improve the social conditions of those in need of help. Originally active onl…
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Religion Past and Present
Sozomen
(342 words)
[German Version] (Salamanes Hermeias Sozomenos; c. 380, near Gaza – 440, Constantinople), after 425 a lawyer in Constantinople and author of a history of the church from 324 to 422 in nine books (the last left in outline). His birth to Christian parents in rural Gaza, then still largely pagan, and his socialization in the company of Palestinian monks left their mark on his thought and his work. The latter was based on the church history of Socrates Scholasticus, whom he never mentions by name; he …
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Religion Past and Present
Space
(1,407 words)
[German Version]
I. Philosophy One of the first detailed discussions of space and its nature was undertaken by Aristotle, who rejected the atomists’ assumption of a void (Atomism: I) as well as Plato’s identification of space and matter. Aristotle defined the position of a body as the inner boundary of the body surrounding it (e.g. in the case of water, the inner surface of its container). According to Aristotle, therefore, a void or empty space cannot exist within or the world or outside it. In 1277 the proposition that God cannot move the world along a straight line was conde…
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Religion Past and Present
Spain
(2,644 words)
[German Version]
I. General In antiquity
Hispania denoted the whole Iberian Peninsula, sometimes including Mauretania Tingitana; not until the late Middle Ages was Portugal gradually excluded. The general political and ecclesiastical history of Spain was dominated by three factors: its position on the periphery of the continent of Europe, which led to close contacts (at times very close) with northern Africa; centuries of religious and political diversity, especially in the Middle Ages, in contrast to…
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Religion Past and Present
Spalatin, Georg
(449 words)
[German Version] (Burkhardt; Jan 17, 1484, Spalt – Jan 14, 1545, Altenburg), son of a Franconian tanner, Spalatin attended the Latin school in Nuremberg in 1497 and began his university studies in 1498 at Erfurt, one of a circle of students of the Humanist Nikolaus Marschalk, whom he followed to Wittenberg in 1502. After receiving his M.A. in 1503, he devoted himself to the study of law, which he continued in Erfurt in 1504. Between 1505 and 1516, he worked primarily as a teacher, initially – thro…
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Religion Past and Present
Spalding, Johann Joachim
(843 words)
[German Version] (Nov 1, 1714, Tribsees, Swedish Pomerania – May 22, 1804, Berlin). One of the most important Lutheran theologians of the 18th century, revered by his contemporaries as the patriarch of Enlightenment theology for his intellectual honesty, ecclesiastical modernity, and human integrity, Spalding was a pioneer of modern theology. From 1731 to 1733 he studied philosophy and theology in Rostock and afterwards in Greifswald, receiving his Dr.phil. in 1736. From 1745 to 1747 he served as secretary of the Swedish embassy in Berlin, whil…
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Religion Past and Present
Spangenberg
(387 words)
[German Version]
1. Johann (Mar 29, 1484, Hardegsen – Jun 13, 1550, Eisleben). After attending school in Göttingen (1501) and Einbeck (1502), Spangenberg began his university studies at Erfurt in the fall of 1508, receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1511. He served as head of the Latin school in Stolberg (Harz) and in 1524 was appointed pastor in Nordhausen (Harz), where he improved the town school. In June of 1546 he was called to Eisleben as inspector of the churches in comital Mansfeld; while ther…
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Religion Past and Present
Spangenberg, August Gottlieb
(416 words)
[German Version] ( Jul 15[16], 1704, Klettenberg, Harz – Sep 18, 1792, Berthelsdorf ), son of Georg Spangenberg, a Lutheran pastor, and Dorothea Katharina Nese, a pastor’s daughter. After attending school in Ilfeld, he studied theology in Jena and served as an amanuensis for J.F. Buddeus. In 1722 he experienced a Pietist conversion and became a disciple of J.G. Gichtel, attracted by J. Otto Glüsing (died 1727). In 1727 he came in contact with the Herrnhuters and led a revivalist student fellowship in 1729 as
magister legens. In 1732 he received an adjunct appointment to the Hal…
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Religion Past and Present
Spanheim
(560 words)
[German Version]
1. Friedrich, the Elder ( Jan 1, 1600, Amberg – May 14, 1649, Leiden), Reformed theologian. He was appointed professor of theology in Geneva in 1626 and professor of theology in 1631; from 1633 to 1637 he served as rector of the university. He was appointed professor of theology in Leiden in 1642 and in 1648 he became pastor of the Walloon congregation there. He was a champion of strict Reformed orthodoxy as defined by the Synod of Dort, rejecting such theological positions as M. Amyraut’s doctrine of grace. Christoph Strohm Bibliography C. Borgeaud,
Histoire de l’univers…
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Religion Past and Present
Special Education
(1,176 words)
[German Version]
I. Definition and History In both German and English, the term
special education (
Sonderpädagogik) is used more or less synonymously with
remedial education, education of the disabled, and
rehabilitation education. It denotes the theory and practice of providing education, instruction, and therapy for disabled people at various stages of life: early education, compulsory schooling, vocational training, and adult education (Education of adults). People are considered handicapped or disabled if injury to their physical or mental functions has …
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Religion Past and Present
Special Gods
(363 words)
[German Version] In religious studies, the term
special gods is sometimes used synonymously with
functional gods, gods of appearance, or
indigitamental gods, but it is used here in the narrower sense intended by H. Usener¶ when he introduced it. For Usener, special gods, equivalent to Varro’s
di certi, represent one stage in the development of the human consciousness of God, understood as an evolutionary process (Evolution: II) characterized by continuous progress from the particular to the general. The lowest stage is represented by the “momentary gods” (Moment, God of …
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Religion Past and Present
Specialist Universities
(360 words)
[German Version] The establishment of specialist universities of applied sciences in Germany began in 1968 on the basis of an agreement among the
Länder; the purpose was to meet a growing need for qualified engineers, management experts, and other professionals, especially in the European context, through academic training focused on practical application. The first generation of these universities was built between 1968 and 1971. Their forerunners, many with a rich tradition, were engineering academies, schools of ap…
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Religion Past and Present
Special Ministries
(496 words)
[German Version] The pastoral profession (Clergy) assumes that the pastor is a generalist, a view reflected in theological education. Liturgy and religious ceremonies, instruction, pastoral care, and church leadership are the fundamental competencies required for
cura generalis in the local church. But ministerial leadership has always had a place for special competencies (Cybernetics: III). When Frederick the Great instituted standing armies, army chaplaincy became the first “special ministry.” In the 19th century, industrializat…
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Religion Past and Present
Speculation
(1,498 words)
[German Version]
I. Religious Studies
1. The use of the term
speculation in religious studies is not divorced from its use in philosophy (see II below) and everyday language, but – especially in the phenomenology of religion – it has been used in a sense specific to religious studies, particularly to denote reflective, rationalizing, and systematizing deliberations regarding a particular religion, such as have arisen in certain historical situations (e.g. cultural upheavals) and various theoretical context…
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Religion Past and Present
Speculative Theology
(1,024 words)
[German Version] Speculative theology arose in the context of the speculative philosophy of F.W.J. Schelling and G.W.F. Hegel; it represented a distinct form of primarily modern Protestant theology, based on the deep-rooted conviction of a positive relationship between philosophy and theology, or faith and reason. The historically divergent conceptions of speculative theology were due not only to fundamentally different understandings of speculation, but also to different understandings of the relationship between faith and knowledge.
I. The development of speculative …
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Religion Past and Present
Speculum humanae salvationis
(256 words)
[German Version] the most important and widespread typological work of the late Middle Ages, combining texts and pictures. It borrowed the structure of the
Biblia pauperum (Bible of the Poor), organized around salvation history, and expanded it thematically, in particular by including scenes from the life of Mary and the passion of Jesus; it also divided the text into tractates. The title and year of composition (1324) of the
nova compilatio appear already in early 14th-century manuscripts. Whether it was compiled by German Dominicans (possibly associated with Lud…
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Religion Past and Present
Speech Act
(540 words)
[German Version] Philosophers of language traditionally reflect on the relationship between language and reality along with the truth or falsity of utterances and propositions. Despite some intimations in the work of earlier authors, especially G. Frege (“Der Gedanke,” 1918) and Adolf Reinach (“Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechts,” 1913), it remained for L. Wittgenstein (
Philosophische Untersuchungen, 1953; ET:
Philosophical Investigations, 2001 [bilingual]) and John Langshaw Austin (
How To Do Things with Words, 1962) to formulate the insight that …
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Religion Past and Present
Speer, Robert Elliot
(143 words)
[German Version] (Sep 10, 1867, Huntingdon, PA – Nov 23, 1947, Bryn Mawr, PA), defining figure in American missionary work of his time. Influenced by D.L. Moody, he became active in the Student Volunteer Movement; in 1891, just as he was beginning his theological studies, he was appointed secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, with which he remained associated for over 50 years until his retirement in 1937. Missiologically close to R. Anderson, he was a prolific author and much i…
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Religion Past and Present
Spee (Spe) von Langenfeld, Friedrich
(291 words)
[German Version] (Feb 25, 1591, Kaiserswerth – Aug 7, 1635, Trier), joined the Jesuits in 1610 and worked for the order as a theological teacher in support of the Counter-Reformation; in 1629 he was appointed professor of theology in Trier. He owes his importance not to his role as an academic theologian but to his unique combination of piety, literary talent, and active commitment to the suffering. His major religious works, the
Güldenes Tugend-Buch and
Trutz-Nachtigall, published posthumously in 1649, influenced confessional Roman Catholic religiosity through literat…
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Religion Past and Present
Spellman, Francis Joseph
(218 words)
[German Version] (May 4, 1889, Whitman, MA – Dec 2, 1967, New York). After studies at Fordham University, New York, and in Rome, Spellman was ordained to the priesthood in 1916 and received his doctorate in theology the same year. He served in diocesan assignments in the archdiocese of Boston until 1925, when he assumed a position at the Vatican’s Secretariat of State. In this capacity he became close personally and professionally to Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who was secretary of state from 1929 u…
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Religion Past and Present
Spencer, Herbert
(165 words)
[German Version] (Apr 27, 1820, Derby, England – Dec 8, 1903, Brighton, England), social scientist and popular writer, worked as a railway engineer and political journalist. His
System of Synthetic Philosophy (1862–1896) established his reputation as a comprehensive thinker about society, education, ethics, and politics. To each of these domains he applied general evolutionary ideas. Evolution also explained the history of religions, which mirrored the social systems in which they existed, reinforced the practices of existin…
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Religion Past and Present
Spencer, John
(171 words)
[German Version] (1630, Bocton, Kent, England, baptized Oct 31, 1630 – May 27, 1693, probably Cambridge, England), English theologian and Hebraist. He ¶ served as fellow (1655) and master (1667) of Corpus Christi College, in Cambridge, before being appointed dean of Ely (1677). His most influential work,
De Legibus Hebraeorum (1685), traced the religious antiquities of the ancient Hebrews and laid the foundation for the subsequent emergence of the study of comparative religion. He was the first scholar to observe the similarities between Hebre…
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Religion Past and Present
Spencer, Sir Stanley
(200 words)
[German Version] ( Jun 30, 1891, Cookham – Dec 14, 1959, Cliveden). Trained at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, twice an Official War Artist and knighted toward the end of his long and productive career, Spencer was nonetheless regarded at the time of his death as an eccentric, isolated from the mainstream of contemporary art, a figurative painter unfashionably preoccupied with religious subject-matter. Just as Fra Angelico used 15th-century Florence as the setting for his scenes from the N…
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Religion Past and Present
Spener, Philipp Jakob
(1,012 words)
[German Version] ( Jan 13, 1635, Rappoltsweiler, Elsass [Ribeauvillé, Alsace] – Feb 5, 1705, Berlin), father of Lutheran Pietism (I, 1). Son of a devout middle-class family with connections at court, he was brought up on edifying Puritan literature and J. Arndt’s
Wahres Christentum. At the age of 16, he entered the University of Strasbourg (II); after foundation courses in philosophy (1653 master’s disserta-¶ tion against T. Hobbes), he studied the system of Lutheran orthodoxy (II, 2.a) under J.K. Dannhauer, a theology he remained faithful to throughout his…
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Religion Past and Present
Spengler, Lazarus
(246 words)
[German Version] (Mar 13, 1479, Nuremberg – Sep 7, 1534, Nuremberg). Spengler, the son of a town clerk, entered the civil service of Nuremberg in 1496 after studying in Leipzig. After 1507 he was the administrative head of the imperial city. He adopted the ideals of Humanism early on, admired the church father Jerome, and soon expressed enthusiasm for the preaching of J. v. Staupitz, which persuaded him to adopt an Augustinian theology of grace. On this basis, he became the spokesman for the Refor…
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Religion Past and Present
Spengler, Oswald
(398 words)
[German Version] (May 29, 1880, Blankenburg, Harz – May 8, 1936, Munich), cultural philosopher and political writer. After studying natural and humane sciences in Halle, Munich, and Berlin, Spenger received his doctorate from Halle in 1904, with a dissertation about Heraclitus directed by the Neo-Kantian Alois Riehl. From 1907 to 1912 he taught mathematics, natural science, German, and history at a Gymnasium in Hamburg. In 1913, working as an independent scholar, he started on his major work,
Der Untergang des Abendlandes (1918/1922), in which he described world history as …
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Religion Past and Present
Spenser, Edmund
(300 words)
[German Version] (c. 1552, London – Jan 16, 1599, London). For centuries Spenser, the son of a clothmaker, has been among the luminaries of English poetry. As a scholarship student at Cambridge, he became known through his friendship with the poet P. Sidney, to whom he dedicated his “Shepherd’s Calendar” in 1579 and whose early death he lamented in his classic elegy “Astrophel” (1586). Thanks to his relationship with Sidney and his friends, who were close to the court, Spenser was appointed admini…
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Religion Past and Present
Speratus, Paul
(319 words)
[German Version] (or Spreth; Dec 13, 1494, Rötlen, near Ellwangen – Aug 12, 1551, Marienwerder [Kwidzyn], Poland). After studying at several European universities, Speratus was ordained to the priesthood in 1506; c. 1519/1520 he served a church in Dinkelsbühl and in 1520 was appointed dean of the cathedral in Würzburg. Dismissed because of his sympathies with the Reformation (evangelical preaching, secret marriage), he went to Salzburg and Vienna (where he was excommunicated by the faculty of theo…
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Religion Past and Present
Speyer
(401 words)
[German Version] The Roman
civitas of Nementum is mentioned as the seat of a bishopric as early as 345. Since the 7th century, the episcopal list of Speyer has been preserved almost without a gap. The Salian dynasty (1024–1125; Salians), beginning with Conrad II, had the cathedral rebuilt (Church architecture: II, 2.b with fig. 12). The monumental Romanesque cathedral was intended as the burial place of the Salian emperors. By 1294 the city had generally achieved independence from episcopal rule. It…
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Religion Past and Present
Spiecker, Friedrich Albert
(282 words)
[German Version] (Feb 19, 1854, Boppard – Jul 10, 1937, Berlin), businessman. After an apprenticeship in Hachenburg (Westerwald), in 1872 he began language study in Antwerp and London. In 1879 he was appointed director of the Missions-Handels-Actien-Gesellschaft of the Rhenish Missionary Society in Barmen. In 1902 he was appointed to the executive board of Siemens in Berlin. Spiecker embodied the novel figure of the Protestant economic self-made men, who by virtue of personal competence and commun…
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Religion Past and Present
Spiegel zum Desenberg, Ferdinand August von
(314 words)
[German Version] (Dec 25, 1764, Schloß Canstein, Westphalia – Aug 2, 1835, Cologne), descended from ancient Westphalian nobility, buried in the choir of Cologne cathedral. From 1777 to 1783 he studied at an aristocratic boarding school in Fulda, then from 1783 to 1785 he studied law, political science, and economics in Münster, where he was appointed to the canonry in 1793 and elected dean of the cathedral in 1799. In 1796 he was appointed privy councilor in the secular district administration of …
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Religion Past and Present
Spiera, Francesco
(100 words)
[German Version] (1502, Cittadella, – Dec 27, 1548, Cittadella). In 1548 Spiera, an Italian jurist, recanted his Protestant belief in justification by faith before the Inquisition. He fell into a depression because he believed he had committed the unforgiveable “sin against the Holy Spirit” and soon died a natural death. Bishop P.P. Vergerio cared for him and ascribed his conversion to Protestantism to this experience. His widely published account of Spiera’s death (later with a foreword by Calvin) warned crypto-Protestants against concealing their faith. Joachim Weinhardt Biblio…
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Religion Past and Present
Spieth, Andreas Jakob
(98 words)
[German Version] (Nov 2, 1856, Hegensberg – May 28, 1914, Hamburg). In 1874 he entered training at the headquarters of the Basel Mission. From 1880 to 1901, he worked in Ho (now southeastern Ghana) as a missionary of the Norddeutsche Mission; after 1901 he worked in Tübingen. He was the most important translator of Ewe for the Norddeutsche Mission; he and Diedrich Westermann were its leading ethnographers. His publications include
Die Ewe-Stämme: Material zur Kunde des Ewe-Volkes in Deutsch-Togo (1906) and
Die Religion der Eweer in Süd-Togo (1911). Adam Jones Bibliography
MNDMG 75, 19…
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Religion Past and Present
Spifame, Jacques
(187 words)
[German Version] (1502, Paris – Mar 23, 1566, Genega), seigneur de Passy. After studying law, he was appointed counselor of state and parliamentary counselor in Paris; he was appointed bishop of Nevers in 1548. In 1559 he resigned, fled to Geneva, and became a Protestant, having been suspected of Protestant sympathies for some time. In the background was an adulterous relationship in the distant past and a desire to legitimate a love affair and the children it produced. Together with T. Beza, Spif…
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Religion Past and Present
Spina, Bartolomeo de
(152 words)
[German Version] (c. 1475, Pisa – Apr 3, 1547, Rome). After joining the Dominicans in 1493, Spina taught in Modena, Bologna, and Padua. He had contacts with S.M. Prierias but nevertheless harshly attacked T. de Vio Cajetan for not correctly teaching the immortality of the soul. He served as an inquisitor and also considered the prosecution of witches essential. He did not agree with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. In 1542 Paul III appointed him Magister Sacri Palatii, an office that ena…
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Religion Past and Present
Spinner, Heinrich Wilfrid
(116 words)
[German Version] (Oct 12, 1854, Bonstetten – Aug 31, 1918, Weimar), Dr.theol. (Zürich, 1891). In 1878 he was appointed pastor of the Zürcher Kirche. In 1884 he was a co-founder of the Allgemeiner Evangelisch-protestantischer Missionsverein (AEPM; Ostasien-Mission); from 1885 to 1891 he was the first missionary of the AEPM in Japan, establishing German-speaking congregations in Tokyo (1885) and Yokohama (1886). From 1892 to 1896, he served as senior pastor in Ilmenau, Thuringia; from 1896 to 1918 h…
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Religion Past and Present
Spinola, Christoph de Royas y
(13 words)
[German Version] Royas y Spinola, Christoph de
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Religion Past and Present
Spinoza, Baruch
(1,120 words)
[German Version] (Nov 24, 1632, Amsterdam – Feb 21, 1677, The Hague).
I. Life Spinoza was born into an immigrant Jewish merchant family from Portugal and grew up in the Jewish milieu of Amsterdam. He began working in his father’s business in 1649. In 1656 he was excommunicated from the Jewish community for heresy. In 1660 he moved to Rijnsburg, where he worked as a lens grinder, wrote his earliest philosophical works, and began the first draft of his
Ethica. He moved to Voorburg in 1663. With a lifelong interest in the politics of his country, in 1665 he began work on a th…
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Religion Past and Present
Spinozism
(582 words)
[German Version] The term
Spinozism denotes a system that onesidedly emphasizes certain elements of B. Spinoza’s philosophy, usually with polemical intent. Until the end of the 18th century, theologians used the term synonymously with atheism on the basis of Spinoza’s rejection of a Creator God in his
Ethica and his attack on revealed religion in his
Tractatus theologico-politicus. Spinoza’s expression
Deus sive Natura, used only in passing, was understood as positing the simple identity of God and nature. His thesis that God acts solely out of the necessi…
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Religion Past and Present
Spirit
(3,560 words)
[German Version]
I. Religious Studies
1. Since time immemorial, the use of the term
spirit has been influenced by Christian usage, especially by the concept of the Holy Spirit, including connotations of Latin
spiritus and Greek πνεύμα/
pneúma.
Spirit has a wide range of meaning; it can denote both a spiritual and a mental attitude, dynamic, or quality ascribed to an individual and a projection of such phenomena into the external world. An anthropomorphic concretion of such projections can then refer to “beings” that in earlier times might have been called “trolls” or the like.
2. In religi…
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Religion Past and Present
Spirit and Spiritual Gifts
(2,816 words)
[German Version]
I. Religious Studies Wherever notions of “supernatural” anthropomorphic powers arise, so does the notion of spirit possession. A spirit can enter into a person’s body and sometimes supplant the spirit or soul (considered the same in many cultures) of the host’s body; often the spirit settles in the host’s head or on his or her shoulders. It is then described as being “in the saddle” and “riding” its human means of transportation. If a relationship develops between the spirit and the …
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Religion Past and Present
Spirit/Holy Spirit
(8,121 words)
[German Version]
I. Religious Studies and History of Philosophy The dogmatic definition of the Holy Spirit as a person within the one divine substance (Trinity/Doctrine of the Trinity) presupposes not only a particular philosophical context but also a religio-historical horizon. A formative influence on the conceptualization of the Holy Spirit was exercised by the various anthropomorphic interpretations of elemental anthropological or normative qualities in the context of polytheistic interpretations of …
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Religion Past and Present
Spiritism
(479 words)
[German Version]
Spiritism (or
spiritualism) denotes a movement whose adherents believe in the empirically demonstrable possibility of contact with the dead in the spirit world. It reached its peak in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century. The roots of spiritism lie in the penumbra of Mesmerism (F.A. Mesmer, J. Kerner), especially Mesmer’s experiments in ascribing paranormal abilities like clairvoyance and automatic writing to “somnambulists.” Spiritism followed two parallel lines of development. In the United States, the mesmerist Andrew Jackson…
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Religion Past and Present
Spirit, Orders of the Holy
(537 words)
[German Version]
1. Order of the Holy Spirit (Hospitallers). A lay brotherhood going back to the Hospital of the Holy Spirit founded in Montpellier c. 1170/1175 by Guido of Montpellier, which was recognized as an order in 1198 by Innocent III (following the Augustinian Rule [Augustine, Rule of Saint], with a special vow of hospitality and statutes based on those of the chivalric hospitallers); in 1204 the hospital of Santa Maria (later Santo Spirito) at Sassia in Rome was transferred to them. The o…
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Religion Past and Present
Spiritual Franciscans
(247 words)
[German Version] The Spiritual Franciscans were rigorist Franciscan reform groups in southern France and central Italy c. 1274–1337, who lived by the ideal of absolute poverty (IV, 2), preferred hermitages for contemplation, urged observance of the Testament as well as the Rule, and eschewed books and academic studies. Their roots went back to Francis of Assisi and his earliest companions (per Brother Leo and Giles). After the ideas of Joachim of Fiore pervaded the order, they exalted its founder as a “second Christ” (
alter Christus) and ascribed to the order a special mission …
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Religion Past and Present
Spiritualism
(2,439 words)
[German Version]
I. Definition The use of
spiritualism as a precise technical term was shaped by the
Soziallehren of E. Troeltsch, who used it to distinguish between two groups Luther had lumped together as
Schwärmer (“Enthusiasts”): spiritualists and Anabaptists. The common characteristic shared by the groups called spiritualists is their belief in the direct effect of the Holy Spirit (Spirit/Holy Spirit) within each individual, in contrast to the outward working of the Spirit through the words of Scripture. As a rule, this belief i…
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Religion Past and Present
Spirituality
(5,031 words)
[German Version]
I. Terminology The growing popularity of the term
spirituality and its equivalents in other Western languages in religious and theological literature is a 20th-century phenomenon. Although the adjective
spiritalis (or
spiritualis) appeared in early Christian Latin, translating Pauline πνευματικός/
pneumatikós (1 Cor 2:13–3:1, etc.), along with its antonym
carnalis (for σαρκικός/
sarkikós) and rapidly became common, the noun
spiritualitas did not appear until the 5th century and then only sporadically. In the 12th century, it began to app…
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Religion Past and Present
Spiritual Regulation of Peter the Great
(413 words)
[German Version] The
Dukhhovny Reglament (“Spiritual/Church Regulation”) was the basic law governing the Russian Orthodox Church from 1721 to 1917. After the death of Adrian, the patriarch of Moscow, in 1700, Peter the Great decided to abolish the patriarchate and replace it with a council. Under Peter’s supervision, his colleague F. Prokopovich composed the
Reglament, which was published on Jan 21, 1721. On Feb 14, 1721, the council had its first meeting as the Most Holy Governing Synod (Sviateishii Pravitel’stvuiushchii Sinod); its membership var…
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Religion Past and Present
Spirituals
(569 words)
[German Version] In the United States, great numbers of hymns and songs in popular use have been collected and published as spirituals or gospel hymns (Gospel music) since the 1860s; from the outset, discussion of their structure and musical character has been unending. Since the 13 original states of the United States were formerly British colonies, their church bodies belonged ¶ to the Anglican and Protestant churches and sects of the home country, and their religious music followed the musical styles of New England (Church song: I, 13). What was overlo…
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Religion Past and Present
Spitta
(431 words)
[German Version]
1. Carl Johann Philipp (Aug 1, 1801, Hanover – Sep 28, 1859, Burgdorf ), hymnodist in the revival movement. After studying at Göttingen, where he had contact with H. Heine, he served as a tutor in Lüne and as pastor and superintendent in Sudwalde, Hameln, Wechold, Wittingen, and Burgdorf. His
Psalter und Harfe was widely influential (first collection with 66 hymns 1833, second collection with 40 hymns 1843); six of his hymns are in the
Evangelisches Gesangbuch. Konrad Klek Bibliography Works include:
Psalter und Harfe, ed. H.-C. Drömann, 1991 On Spitta: D. Klahr,
BBKL X,…
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Religion Past and Present
Spitteler, Carl
(130 words)
[German Version] (Apr 24, 1845, Liestal, Switzerland – Dec 29, 1924, Lucerne), writer. After studying theology in Zürich, Heidelberg, and Basel, Spitteler worked as a tutor in St. Petersburg from 1871 to 1879. He began working as a freelance writer in 1892. He soon rejected Christianity and the notion of a benevolent Creator God, taking Prometheus as the prototype of the introverted individual (
Prometheus und Epimetheus, 1880/1881; ET:
Prometheus and Epimetheus, 1931;
Prometheus der Dulder, 1924; ET:
Prometheus the Suffering, 1924). He considered creation a misadventure (
Extramun…
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Religion Past and Present
Spittler, Christian Friedrich
(183 words)
[German Version] (Apr 12, 1782, Wimsheim, near Pforzheim – Dec 8, 1867, Basel), vigorous organizer of the revival movement (Revival/Revival movements) in southern Germany. After receiving training in public administration, in 1801 he was appointed secretary of the Deutsche Christentumsgesellschaft in Basel, where he inspired or founded several missionary and philanthropic institutions, including the Basel Bible Society (1804) and the Basel Mission (1815), a training center for teachers in ragged s…
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Religion Past and Present
Spittler, Ludwig Timotheus
(163 words)
[German Version] (Nov 11, 1752, Stuttgart – Mar 14, 1810, Stuttgart), historian and statesman. After studying theology in Tübingen, in 1775 he went on an educational trip to northern Germany. In 1777 he was appointed lecturer at the Tübinger Stift. In 1779 he was appointed professor of church history and in 1784 of political history in Göttingen. He entered the Württemberg civil service in 1797, being appointed minister of state in 1807; he served as a trustee of the University of Tübingen and hea…
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Religion Past and Present
Spizel, Theophil
(190 words)
[German Version] (Gottlieb; Spicelius, Licespius; Nov 9, 1639, Augsburg – Jan 17, 1691, Augsburg), studied at Leipzig from 1653 to 1660; his teachers included J. Hülsemann and M. Geier. A journey via Hamburg (to J.B. Schupp) to the Netherlands (where he met J.A. Comenius and came to know the ideas of R. Descartes and J. Cocceius) brought him to Straßburg (Strasbourg) and finally to J. Buxtorf (II) in Basel. After 1661 he served the church of Sankt Jakob in Augsburg, being appointed senior pastor i…
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Religion Past and Present
Spoils, Right of
(326 words)
[German Version] (
ius spolii) refers to the custom, attested since Late Antiquity, of allowing the estate of a cleric to be claimed by other clerics or laity. This claim contravened the principle that the property of deceased clergy should preferably accrue to the church. Canon 22 of the Council of Chalcedon in 451 already prohibited appropriation of a bishop’s property by the clergy ¶ after the bishop’s death. The right of spoils was also claimed by bishops and archdeacons in the case of the estate of abbots and presbyters, although councils of the 6th and …
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Religion Past and Present
Spontaneity
(225 words)
[German Version] from Neo-Latin
spontaneitas, based on Latin
spons, “incentive, will,” the ablative of which (
sponte), means “of one’s own accord,” self-motivated. A movement is spontaneous if it is not caused by something inherent in the person who moves or in someone or something else. In this sense, Aristotle already distinguished between motion that arises “from itself ” (ἀπὸ ταυτομάτου/
apó
tautomátou, Metaph. VII 7, 1032a 13) and motion caused by nature or art (τέχνη/
téchnē). The notion first became prominent, however, in modern philosophy under the category of…
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Religion Past and Present
Sports
(735 words)
[German Version] Generally, the term
sport can be understood to cover all manifestations of regulated, agonal, motor interaction that qualify as ludic (Play) and as such subserve corporeal self-awareness (prowess, body control, achievement [II; Contest], pleasure) and corporeal expression of the participants’ sense of self. Such phenomena have been present in all ages and all cultures, though with varying public impact. In pre-Christian antiquity, sport played a major public role (the classical Olympic Games from 776 bce to 393 ce [Olympia]), which shrank as Christianity b…
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Religion Past and Present
Spranger, Eduard
(426 words)
[German Version] ( Jun 27, 1882, Lichterfelde, now part of Berlin – Sep 17, 1963, Tübingen), member of the Prussian and Saxon Academies of Science and of the order Pour le Mérite, and recipient of an honorary doctorate from Budapest (1935). He entered the University of Berlin in 1900, studying with Friedrich Paulsen, W. Dilthey, and Otto Hinze; he received his doctorate in 1905 and his habilitation in 1909. In 1911 he was ¶ appointed professor of philosophy and education at Leipzig. From 1920 to 1945 he taught in Berlin, from 1946 to 1952 in Tübingen. From his univer…
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Religion Past and Present
Sprengel (Parish/Diocese)
(147 words)
[German Version] The German
Sprengel, originally an implement for sprinkling (holy) water, denotes the area of a priest’s responsibility (and in Austria, also a secular administrative area). Historically, it first denoted the area of a bishop’s responsibility (bishopric). As a synonym of parish, in pre-Carolingian times it could also already stand for the area of a priest’s responsibility. Beginning with the Reformation reor-¶ dering of church law structures (cf. the 1533 Wittenberg church order),
Sprengel comes to refer generally to a specific area (under the persona…
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Religion Past and Present
Sprögel, Johann Heinrich
(211 words)
[German Version] (Oct 11, 1644, Quedlinburg – Feb 25, 1722, Stolp, Pomerania [Słupsk]), Lutheran theologian, a leader of the Pietist movement in Quedlinburg, and father-in-law of G. Arnold. After studying in Leipzig, he taught at the abbey Gymnasium in Quedlinburg and was appointed a deacon of the abbey in 1681. After bitter conflicts with the abbess Anna Dorothea, duchess of Saxony-Weimar (governed 1684–1704), his ties with Pietism (journey to Leipzig in 1689; close contacts with A.H. Francke, at…
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Religion Past and Present
Spurgeon, Charles Haddon
(257 words)
[German Version] ( Jun 19, 1834, Kelvedon, Essex – Jan 31, 1892, Menton, France). A conversion experience led Spurgeon to join the Baptist Union (Baptists); in 1850 he became an assistant pastor. He moved to London in 1854, where his unusual rhetorical gifts were quickly evident; they would soon make him the most famous preacher in England (III, 1.e). In 1855 he began to preach in large halls in London. His success as preacher led to the building of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, with 5,600 seats. H…
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Religion Past and Present
Sremski Karlovci
(196 words)
[German Version] (Hung. Karlócza), a city on the Danube in Syrmia (Srem), Serbia, a Baroque ecclesiastical center of Orthodox Serbs within the Catholic Habsburg empire. From 1713 to 1920, it was a metropolitan (II) see, autocephalous (Autocephaly) after the abolition of the patriarchate of Peć in 1766. With the help of Russian theologians from Kiev, Sremski Karlovci became an intellectual and theological center (seminary opened in 1774, the first Serbian Gymnasium in 1791). The “national church co…
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Religion Past and Present
Sri Lanka
(1,137 words)
[German Version] Christianity in Sri Lanka can look back over a remarkably long history. After a sporadic presence on the island since the 6th century and a continuous presence since the early 16th, it subsequently went through a development that was sometimes in step with the various stages of European colonial rule and at other times took a significantly different course. The earliest reliable evidence for the existence of Christian communities in Sri Lanka is a comment in the ¶
Christian Topography of the Nestorian merchant and writer Casmas Indicopleustes around the year…
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Religion Past and Present
Śruti/Smṛti
(350 words)
[German Version] ̣In Hinduism (II, 1.a; III, 3) the terms
śruti (Sanskrit, lit. “hearing,” usually translated freely as “revelation”) and
smṛti (Sanskrit, lit. “memory,” usually rendered freely as “tradition”) serve to classify the Sanskrit texts that conservative Brahmanic circles recognize, at least nominally, as authoritative sacred tradition. The term
śruti usually denotes the Veda or, more precisely, the Vedic Saṃhitās and Brāhmanas together with the Āraṇyakas and Upaniṣads, whereas
smṛti primarily denotes the Dharmaśāstras and Vedic Sūtras, as well as th…
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Religion Past and Present
Stäblein, Bruno
(130 words)
[German Version] (May 5, 1885, Munich – Mar 6, 1978, Erlangen). After studing musicology and music (Dr.phil. 1918), he worked as a conductor and Gymnasium teacher; in 1953 he was appointed director of the Instut für Musikforschung in Regensburg, which he had founded in 1945. In 1946 he received his habilitation and in 1956 was appointed professor of musicology at Erlangen, where he founded the “Monumenta monodica medii aevi” series. His studies on the musical literature of the Latin Middle Ages se…
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Religion Past and Present
Staël, Anne Louise Germaine de
(80 words)
[German Version] Baroness de Stäel-Holstein (Apr 22, 1766, Paris – Jul 14, 1817, Paris). As an exile during the French Revolution, Mme. de Staël was the central figure of a European network of communication. Refracting the ideas of J.-J. Rousseau through the lens of early German Romanticism, she wrote in criticism of the social conventionality restricting women, and preached the perfecting of humanity in history. Volker Leppin Bibliography C. Blennerhassett,
Madame de Staël, 1889 (Eng.).
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Religion Past and Present
Staff
(172 words)
[German Version] a support for the elderly and a token of power (Exod 4:2ff.; 2 Kgs 4:29); a shepherd uses the crook of his staff to keep his flock together (Ps 23:4). The staff used as a means of support by elderly monks turned into an abbatial staff, first attested in the case of St. Columbanus. The bishop’s staff or crozier, probably borrowed from official Byzantine ceremonial, developed as an extra-liturgical token of jurisdiction (first attested for Caesarius of Arles); from the 9th century on, it was conferred by the king at investiture. The first mention ¶ of the episcopal crozier in…
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Religion Past and Present
Staffing Rights, Church
(540 words)
[German Version] In a broad sense, church staffing rights involve the fundamental issue of the extent to which churches and religious organizations have the right to administer their own affairs in issuing their own employment and labor regulations. The development of ecclesiastical employment and labor law in a way appropriate to the church’s mission is their own concern, as stated in German Basic Law art. 140 with Weimar Constitution art. 137 §3. This right of self-determination (see also Church…
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Religion Past and Present
Staffort Book
(190 words)
[German Version] (1599). The Staffort Book is witness to the change of confessional allegiance of Margrave Ernst Friedrich v. Baden-Durlach, one of the three sons of Margrave Charles II, on whose behalf the guardians Louis, elector palatine, Philip Louis, count palatine of Neuburg, and Duke Louis of Württemberg had signed the Formula of Concord after the margrave’s death. The book, printed at Schloß Staffort near Durlach, consisted – in its larger version – of a rejection of the Formula of Concord…
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Religion Past and Present
Stahl, Friedrich Julius
(363 words)
[German Version] ( Jan 16, 1802, Munich – Aug 10, 1861, Brückenau), Protestant jurisprudent and politician. Stahl (orig. Jolson) was of Jewish parentage; in 1819 he converted to Lutheranism and took the name Stahl when he was baptized. In 1832 he was appointed associate professor at Erlangen and in the same year full professor at Würzburg; in 1834 he was ¶ appointed full professor at Erlangen. As representative of the university in the Bavarian
Landtag, he was reprimanded on account of a conflict with the government; in 1840 he therefore accepted an appointment in Be…
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Religion Past and Present
Stählin, Wilhelm
(252 words)
[German Version] (Sep 24, 1883, Gunzenhausen – Dec 16, 1975, Prien am Chiemsee). After studying Protestant theology in Erlangen, Rostock, and Berlin, Stählin served as a pastor in Bavaria. He received his doctorate from Würzburg in 1913 with a dissertation on the metaphorical language of the New Testament. In 1914 he founded the Gesellschaft für Religionspsychologie in Nuremberg. After 1918 he was one of the leading theologians in the
Jugendbewegung. From 1922 to 1932 he was a leader in the Bund Deutscher Jugendvereine. In 1923 he helped establish the Berneuchen …
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Religion Past and Present
Stained Glass
(1,567 words)
[German Version]
I Stained (or painted) glass is a type of monumental painting whose effect is dependent on the translucence of its material. It consists of flat pieces of colored glass held together in a grooved lead (came) framework to form a representational or ornamental composition. In representational compositions and sometimes in ornamental compositions, the pieces of glass are painted with black stain of varying density. Annealing in a special furnace bonds the painting to the surface of the glass.
II Around 1100 Theophilus Presbyter described the technique of making…
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Religion Past and Present
Stalinism
(478 words)
[German Version] The term
Stalinism was not coined by the “Stalinists” but by their opponents. It is commonly accepted as denoting the authoritarian and bureaucratic system of government established under J. Stalin- between 1928/1929 and 1953, together with the dictatorship of a party leader who imposed his arbitrarily defined political line, employing an entourage of compliant functionaries (
nomenklatura) and terrorism against enemies real and supposed. Ideologically speaking, Stalinism was rooted in the theories of V. Lenin. It did not consider itse…
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Religion Past and Present
Stalin, Joseph
(572 words)
[German Version] (Vissarionovich Jughashvili; Dec 6 [18], 1878, Gori, Georgia – Mar 5, 1953, Moscow). Stalin’s family was poor. From 1888 to 1894, he attended the church school in Gori and then the Orthodox seminary in Tiflis. When he was expelled in 1899 on account of his contacts with underground Marxist circles (Marxism), his membership in the Georgian Social Democratic Mesame Dasi (1898) brought him into the Tiflis organization of the Russian Social Demo-¶ cratic Labor Party (RSDLP) in the fall of 1901. Under the cover names
Koba and
Stalin (“the man of steel”), he engaged in re…
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Religion Past and Present