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[German Version] I. Judaism – II. Christianity – III. Islam I. Judaism Talmudic tradition includes several examples of disputations between Jewish scholars and pagan philosophers or Roman emperors, dealing mainly with the questions of divine unity, the creation and the role of Israel ( b. Sanh. 91a–b; ' Abod. Zar. 10a–11a, etc.). Disputations with representatives of Islam and, especially, of the Christian religion became a central subject in the historical and apologetical literature (…

[German Version] In the 12th century, a scholarly work briefly summarizing the totality of important knowledge in a particular field (Robert of Melun: singulorum brevis comprehensio) came to be called a Summa (later also Summula). Various disciplines were represented: Summa grammaticae/grammaticalis; Summa super Priscianum; Summa dictaminis/artis notariae; Summa logicae ( Summulae dialectices/logicales/logicae); Summa de modis significandi; Summa philosophiae; Summula philosophiae naturalis; Summa de anima, etc. Compendia of civil and canon law were also called Summae…

[German Version] (483 – 577 or 583) founded several Irish monasteries and was abbot of Clonfert (County Galway). He is known to us from the legendary account of a seven-year voyage of Brendan and his companions to a paradisal island in the Atlantic ( Navigatio S. Brendani), written between the 7th and 10th centuries. The work relates more closely to the lives of the desert fathers and Old Irish seafaring literature than to Irish hagiography. It draws on classical …

[German Version] I. University 1. The University of Tübingen was founded in 1477 by count Eberhard the Bearded, during what is known as the “second foundation wave” of German universities. It was the university of the southern part of Württemberg, at that time divided into two. It received the papal privilege in 1476, and imperial confirmation in 1484. For the material support of the professorial chairs, the count devoted eight of the ten regular canonries, and two-thirds of the income of the Sindel…

[German Version] In German, especially in Protestantism, this term (from Lat. devotio) is still used today only in connection with the Roman ritual of devotio and the late medieval devotio moderna movement. In pre-Christian usage, devotio referred to the dedication of the will to the gods, humans, and laws. In Christian usage, its meaning was restricted to the dedication to God associated with obedience and humility. Thomas Aquinas treated devotion along with prayer as interior actus religionis, from which external actions proceed ( Summa Theologiae 2–2 q. 82). In modern usage,…

[German Version] I. History of Religion – II. The Early Church – III. Middle Ages, Reformation, Counter-reformation – IV. The Modern Period – V. Martyrs of the Orthodox Church – VI. Judaism – VII. Islam – VIII. Missiology I. History of Religion The term martyrium (Greek μαρτύριον/ martúrion) was coined in early Christianity, where it denotes a self-sacrificial death in religious conflict as a witness to faith Historical and systematic references are found in many contexts, in which comparable terms imply something slightly different. For example, the Islamic šahīd, “witness…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Archaeology – III. Old Testament – IV. Judaism – V. Christianity – VI. Missiology – VII. Funerary Art I. Religious Studies A burial manifests and represents the culture-bound nature of personality and religious traditions that shape community; consequently, it is also a key to the metaphysics of cultural and civil religion. The history of research in religious studies is associated on many levels with the problem of burial. Studies examine agreements and differences …

[German Version] (Giovanni Fidanza; c. 1217, Bagno-regio [south of Orvieto] – Jul 15, 1274, Lyon) I. Life – II. Work – III. Influence I. Life Most of the dates for Bonaventura's life prior to 1257 are uncertain. After studying in the Paris faculty of arts, the son of Giovanni and Ritella Fidanza joined the Franciscans around 1243, who gave him the name Bonaventura. He began studying under Alexander of Hales, earning his Baccalaureus biblicus in 1248 and lecturing on the Sentences in 1250–52. In 1253 he received the licentiate and began teachi…

[German Version] The German term Mentalität has been used since the 1970s in the scientific language of German historians. It is formed from the French mentalité, adopted in the 18th century from the English “mentality,” which was derived in 17th-century philosophical language from the adjective “mental.” In France, mentalité entered common language during the 19th century. It became popular around 1900 in political language (Dreyfus affair) and in the school of the sociologist E. Durkheim. Through the historians Lucien Febvre (1878–1956) and…

[German Version] The word legend (from Middle Lat. legenda [ sc. vita or acta]) originally denoted a text to be read during worship or within a monastic community, especially at mealtime, in walkways set aside for reading, or in the chapter house. The subject matter was the life and deeds of one or more saints (Saints/Veneration ¶ of the saints: II). For the most part, the legend was regularly read in whole or in part on the festival of the particular saint. In conjunction with the functionalization of the cult of the saints, which had already begun i…

[German Version] (of Milan; died 1278/1281, Milan). The only source for her life is the record of the trial of Wilhelmina and her followers conducted posthumously in 1300 by the Inquisition; it indicates that ¶ she was from Bohemia and was of noble birth. We know nothing of her life before her arrival in Milan between 1260 and 1270, but she is said to have had a son. In that period, numerous religious dissidents were living in Milan, which was shaken not only by conflicts with other cities of northern Italy and internal partisan …

[German Version] I. Church History In Christian usage, the term sacrament has two meanings: a broad meaning corresponding to the New Testament term μυστήριον/ mystḗrion (“mystery”), used as a term for mysteries of the faith in general, and a narrower meaning in the sense of certain liturgical actions that enable believers to share in the salvific grace effected by Christ. While medieval Scholastic theology in the West developed the narrower understanding of sacraments with increasingly precise and subtle definitions, …

[German Version] A first, widely disseminated collection of the Reformer's Latin works was published in Basel in 1518 by Johannes Froben; a first edition of his German works was published in Basel in 1520 by Andreas Cratander. Luther's literary productivity persuaded Cratander and then Adam Petri to publish two more Latin editions – each expanded – in March and again in July of 1520. The first complete edition of Luther's works, the Wittenberg edition, was published between 1539 and 1559 in two series of folio volumes, 12 in German and seven in Latin; the ed…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament – IV. Church History – V. Ethics – VI. Judaism – VII. Indian Religions I. Religious Studies 1. Greece and Rome. The term “asceticism,” the Western meaning of which was shaped by Christianity, derives from Gk ἄσκησις/ áskēsis, a noun denoting activity; ἄσκεῖν/ askeîn originally meant “to craft/to decorate.” In the 5th century bce, the primary meaning became “to train/to exercise.” The exercise was mostly physical (gymnastics, …

[German Version] I. Terminology – II. Religious Studies – III. Church History – IV. Buddhism – V. India I. Terminology Monasticism is a collective term for an alternative way of life, always religiously motivated, that includes asceticism but is also characterized by a more or less radical withdrawal from society (the “world”) as well as from the monastics' own community of faith. The term monk commonly used in Christianity (from secular Gk μοναχός/ monachós, “solitary,” Lat. monachus, borrowed by way of a hypothetical 8th-century monichus* into Old High German [ munih] and othe…

[German Version] I. Terminology Today we limit the term Reformation (from Lat. reformatio) exclusively to the events set in motion by M. Luther, ¶ U. Zwingli, and other Reformers, which led in the course of the 16th century to a cleavage within Western Christendom that has lasted to this day. Until well into the 19th century, however, the term still had its original, broader sense of reform (Reform, Idea of), under which the event we call the Reformation was subsumed. It was the appearance of the French word réforme in the 17th century, borrowed into German in the course of the 19t…

[German Version] (Mar 11, 1485, Cles – Jul 30, 1539, Brixen). After studies in Verona and Bologna, he received the Dr. utriusque iuris in 1511; he became canon of the Cathedral in Trent in 1512, and bishop there in 1514/15. From 1514, as adviser to Maximilian I, he mediated between the emperor and the regime in Innsbruck and upper Italy. After collaborating in the election of Charles V in 1519, he became an adviser to Ferdinand I, in 1522 his chancellor and repre…

[German Version] I. Sociology The popular idea of a town or city is primarily a densely populated and heterogeneous collection of buildings having various uses, provided with specific rights, and always having a market place. The “European city” is however principally understood as being also the arena of city society. Sociology has studied the development of urban societies for about 150 years, because towns are places of close-knit economic growth, social diversity, and innovations and conflicts. To modern sociology the town was simply the laboratory of society. Today in Europe …

[German Version] (1090/1091, Fontaines-lès-Dijon – Aug 20, 1153, Clairvaux). I. Life – II. Work – III. Influence I. Life Bernard, son of the Burgundian nobleman Tescelin le Saur and of Aleth of Montbard, was educated by the secular canons of St. Vorles in Châtillon. In 1113, along with 30 young noblemen, he entered the abbey of Cîteaux, whose abbot was Stephan Harding. In 1115, he was commissioned to fou…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. Judaism – IV. New Testament – V. Church History – VI. Dogmatics and Ethics I. Religious Studies Humility is an attitude of conscious abasement (Humiliation) and submission. Some modes of expressing humility, such as postures or gestures, can be traced to biological roots; others are conventional, for example a “humble glance” or foot washing. In many cases we encounter an inversion of what is culturally normal, for example nakedness in the poverty (IV) movements of the Middle Ages. Basically, a distinction must b…