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
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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 …
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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), …
Source:
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.…
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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 …
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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 …
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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 …
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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 …
Source:
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 …
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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 …
Source:
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…
Source:
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 …
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
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 …
Source:
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…
Source:
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…
Source:
Religion Past and Present