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[German Version] (May 4, 1903, Warlubien, West Prussia – Aug 27, 1991, Mainz) studied from 1922 to 1926 in Königsb…

[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 prob…

[German Version] I. Name and Locations – II. Myth and Cult – III. Mithraic Religion and Christianity I. Name and Locations The term Mithraic religion encompasses various form of worship of the god Mithra in antiquity. His name in Old Iranian and Vedic was Mitra (Gk and Lat. Mithras); its earliest appearance is in the text of a 14th- century bce treaty found at Boghazköy (Ḫattuša), where it means “contract, treaty.” The evidence of inscriptions and liter…

[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 …

[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…

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

[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 …

[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 papyrus, developed into a ramified specialist field of the history of ancient religion. Curren…

[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 Greek language and of Greek rhetoric, literature, and art through his studies and travels. Journeys as a rhetorician and longer sojourns in Ionia, Greece, Italy, …

[German Version] I. Concept – II. Antiquity – III. New Testament – IV. Early Church – V. Systematic Theology I. Concept The notion of a “real person” residing within the outer human being is widely attested in ancient literature and became part of a comprehensive system of metaphors by the time of Hellenism at the latest. However, this notion is conveyed through very different terms, corresponding also to concep…

[German Version] (Gk ᾽Ασκληπιός/ Asklēpiós). The religio-philosophical text called …

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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 1933 to 1949. He was again lecturer, then adjunct professor of the New Testament in Tübingen from 1949 to 1955. In 1955, he became professor at the Kirchliche Hochschule in Berlin, followed by an appointment in Marburg from 1961 to 1970. Involved…

[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 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 ethic…

[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. Burton, and Caspar René Gregory. Before taking up his teaching duties, he spent two years (1898–1900) studying in Europe and the Middle East, attending the lectures of A. von Harnack, Fritz Krebs, and Wilhelm Schubart in Berlin. Goodspeed enj…

[German Version] (Jan 19, 1901, Hallstead, PA – Sep 24, 1974, Deland, FL), New Testament scholar and university administrator; professor at the University of Chicago 1930–1951 (president 1945–1951), dean of faculties at Emory University, Atlanta, GA 1951–1957, president at the School of Theology at Claremont, CA, 1957–1968. Colwell collaborated with Harold R. Willoughby (1890–1962) on the critical edition of NT manuscripts ( The Four Gospels of Karahissar, 1936; The Elizabeth Day McCormick Apocalypse, 1940). Colwell became known for his contributions to textual criti…

[German Version] I. Religious History 1.…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies The formation of catalogues of virtues and vices…

[German Version] I. Philosophy While studying in Athens, Plutarch was converted to Platonism by Ammonius. Later he maintained a philosophical school in his home town, where the students read Plato but were exposed to other philosophical schools as well, especially the Stoics and Epicur…