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[German Version] I. Terminology – II. New Testament – III. Early Church– IV. Byzantine Empire – V. Renaissance, Humanism, Reformation – VI. Enlightenment and Rationalism – VII. Neohumanism – VIII. 20th Century I. Terminology Since F.J. Dölger, “Antiquity and Christianity” (hereafter: A&C) has gained general acceptance in scholarly circles as a heuristic concept. It stands in close relation to the set of problems associated with Hellenism and …

[German Version] I. Name and Locations – II. Myth and Cult – III. Mithraic Religion and Christianity I. Name and Locations …

[German Version] (Aug 17, 1864, Hohenstein, East Prussia [Olsztynek, Poland] – Sep 10, 1915, Göttingen), classical philologist and patristics scholar. The son of a pastor, he began his studies in Berlin in 1882, then studied in Bonn from 1883 to 1885 (H. Usener, Franz Bücheler) and received his doctorate from Berlin in 1886 under Hermann Diels. He taught in a Gymnasium from 1886 to 1902 before being appointed professor of classical philology at Kiel in 1902, moving to Breslau (Wrocław) in 1906 and…

[German Version] is the prevalent name given to a collection of Greco-Egyptian magical texts ( PGrM; Magic: II, 2) edited by Karl Preisendanz at the suggestion of Albrecht Dieterich (vol. I, 1928; vol. II, 1931; vol. III, destroyed in 1943 as a result of the war). Steadily augmented by new finds, these inscriptions, symbols, and drawings on metal foil, ostraca, and intaglios as well as on…

[German Version] (c. 120 ce, Samosata on the Euphrates – after 180, Egypt [?]) was a prominent author of the Second Sophistic School. Not a Greek by birth, he acquired an extensive knowledge of the…

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[German Version] (Jun 11, 1903, Heilbronn – Mar 15, 1983, Langenau near Ulm) studied Protestant theology in Tübingen, Marburg and Bonn, and was Privatdozent in Bonn from 1932. After the revocation of his venia legendi, he officiated as pastor of the Confessing Church in Württemberg from 19…

[German Version] (Oct 23, 18731, Quincy, IL – Jan 13, 1961, Los Angeles, CA). Goodspeed was professor of NT at the University of Chicago from 1898 to 1937. He studied Semitic and Greek philology, textual criticism, and paleography at Chicago with William Rainey Harper, E.D. …

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[German Version] I. Religious Studies The formation of catalogues of virtues and vices in the Hellenistic period (Hellenism) during the conceptualization of moral philosophy appears primarily in the sources of Peripatetic and Stoic theories of the good (for texts see SVF III, no. 377–490; Vögtle, Kamlah, Fitzgerald). The lists may be in loose, traditional order or arranged systematically. They contain basic knowledge intended for parenesis motivated by nature, society, and reason. Their widespread distribution attests to the cultural …

[German Version] I. Concept and History – II. Results of Research – III. Present Perspectives I. Concept and History The concept and term History-of-Religions School (HRS), whether coined by outsiders or insiders is unclear, refers to a group of German Protestant theologians who at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century exerted a continuing influence on theological scholarship. The HRS was not a theological “school” in the strict sense, but an interest group of young scholars that gathered in Göt…

[German Version] I. Philosophy …

[German Version] I. General – II. Significance in the Voodoo Cult – III. Iconography I. General Saint Expeditus was a martyr whose existence and name are questionable. The Martyrologium Hieronymianum mentions him under the date Apr 19 as belonging to a group of Armenian martyrs about whom nothing further is known. His veneration can only be demonstrated from the 18th century on, in the 19th century primarily in Italy and France, sometimes in forms against which the Holy See intervened. According to Delehaye, Expeditus is probably a misspelling of Elpidius. Franz Xaver Bischof Bibliography H. Delehaye, “Saint Expédit et le martyrologe hiéronymien,” in: AnBoll 25, 1906, 90–98 …

[German Version] I. Concept – II. Antiquity – III. New Testament – IV. Early Church – V. Systematic Theology I. Concept The notion of a “…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies 1. Terminology. Theories of transmigration, which go back to the pre-Socratics of the 6th and 5th centuries bce (Empedocles, Pythagoras, Orphism), presuppose a dualism of body and soul. They hold that a human birth is not a totally new creation but the reincarnation of a pre-existent soul. Repeated incarnations extend not only to human beings of all classes and stations but also to flora and fauna; their purpose is the eschatological purification of the soul from ritual and ethical impurity. The goal is deifica…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. The Christian Cult and the Mysteries – III. Art History I. Religious Studies Modern discussion of the Greek mysteries goes back to the material collected by the Dutch scholar Jan de Meurs (1619), which served as the main source for I. Casaubon's argument that the Early Church borrowed but changed some terminology and institutions from the mysteries ( Exercitationes, 1655). The belief that there was a specific religious phenomenon, “the mystery cults of antiquity,” that could be compared directly with the practice…

[German Version] I. Religious History 1. Since the dawn of time, human birth has been associated with many religious ideas, rituals, and customs, including the idea of rebirth or regeneration. As a rite of passage (Rites of passage), birth is not merely a natural process; it can repeat a previous birth, view death as a passage to new life, or distinguish within a lifetime between a corporeal and a spiritual birth, separated by a ritual death. The Greek terminology is not uniform, using ἀναγεννᾶν/ anagennán, ἀναβιοῦν/ anabioún, μεταγεννᾶν/ metagennán, πάλιν γίνεσϑαι/ pálingínesthai, an…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies 1. The terms The terms rite and ritual are often used synonymously, both in daily speech and in the specialized language of religious studies, leading to a lack of clarity. “Rite” is etymologically related to Sanskrit ṛta, “right, order, truth, custom,” and may thus be regarded as the “smallest” building block of a ritual, which can be defined as a complex series of actions in a (logical) functional relationship. Within a three-level sequence, cult (Cult/Worship : I, 2) must also be taken into cons…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Antiquity – III. Bible – IV. Church History – V. Practical Theology – VI. Philosophy of Religion – VII. Judaism – VIII. Islam I. Religious Studies …